Infrastructure Investment Plan
The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-2554, in the name of Tom McCabe, on the infrastructure investment plan.
The coalition Government is committed to its historic drive to improve services for the people of Scotland. That is why "Building a Better Scotland: Infrastructure Investment Plan" was published on 25 February. The plan is an important development that has arisen from the fruits of devolution. It builds on the spending review, which outlined our substantial funding increases from 2005 to 2008.
As we have said many times, growing the economy is our top priority. Only long-term funding will do that and secure the improved quality of life that we aim to achieve. The infrastructure investment plan sets out what we will invest in the longer term to support our top priority. We will support it by delivering high-quality transport to strengthen Scotland's economy and support all our communities; by providing better learning environments to help to inspire pupils, students and adults to achieve the best that they can; by supporting businesses, encouraging enterprise and improving skills and employability; and by investing in new and affordable housing in modern social environments to support economic growth.
Last year, ministers committed to increasing net investment by 5 per cent per annum in real terms over the spending review period. The infrastructure investment plan shows how we have gone beyond that to provide the infrastructure that is needed to improve public services. This is the first such plan. It sets out the broad strategy for our investments. By publishing the plan now, we will show our approach to improved delivery by raising awareness in the public and private sectors.
Our commitment to building the Scottish economy means engaging with business and seeking and taking on board private and public sector views. We are committed to jointly engaging in the efficient and successful delivery of policies that will help Scotland to grow and prosper. In the coming months, I will meet key people in the public and private sectors to discuss the plan's wider implications and to promote its delivery.
No one should doubt that there is much work to do. We have inherited dilapidated infrastructure and we are determined to reverse that by ensuring the long-term maintenance of existing assets as well as creating new assets. To ensure success, we need to improve delivery skills and learn to deal with high-value investment options, including private sector funding.
Since 1999, we have substantially increased investment in infrastructure to start the process of delivering services fit for the 21st century. That investment includes the largest hospital building programme in the history of our national health service. Two examples of such projects are Hairmyres hospital and Wishaw general hospital.
There has been unparalleled investment in schools infrastructure. Three hundred new schools will be provided by 2009. The programme also includes £3 billion-worth of capital investment, the prudential borrowing scheme that is now available to local government and £420 million of investment in the infrastructure and estate of the higher and further education sectors.
Given that public-private partnership projects are effectively off book and not part of public spending, why does the minister think it appropriate for the Executive to take credit for them when council tax payers will fund them?
For some time, I have regarded Mr Monteith as slightly detached, but he has just moved into new areas. The PPP projects produce public goods for the consumption of the general public in Scotland. That is why we think that they are a good idea. I know that Conservatives do not pay a great deal of attention to this, but the public appreciate new schools, hospitals and roads.
Included in the plan is our work on housing in Scotland: stock transfers from local authorities to housing associations, the eradication of fuel poverty and building to sustainable standards. Also included is the redevelopment of our transport infrastructure, which will involve the expenditure of £3 billion over the next 10 years, links to both Edinburgh and Glasgow airports and improvements in integration through the new transport agency.
The sum of £1.8 billion will be invested in our water system to improve drinking water and sewage treatment. A strategic waste fund of £500 million will be available to local authorities to assist with recycling and waste treatment.
It is important that we end the sterile debate about whether private sector or public sector delivery is best. We need to recognise and use the best of both. We need to celebrate successes in both sectors, and both sectors need to learn from mistakes that are made.
The funding for our plans will come from a variety of managed processes, demonstrating our mixed-economy approach. Those will include increased conventional funding; increasing exploration of the benefits of partnership arrangements; additional private finance through PPP; and the prudential framework that is now available to local government, as I said.
PPPs are one example of our mixed-economy approach. Investment in PPPs represents about 13 per cent of total Scottish block capital investment and shows that we can combine the best of public and private expertise, innovation and financing to deliver effective public services in Scotland.
As the minister would expect, I will ask a relatively technical question at this stage, in the hope that he may develop it. There is much in the plan that is entirely welcome. It is described as relating to investment in infrastructure, which is defined as "fixed capital equipment". Can he explain where the fixed capital is in central heating in homes, which is going on the Executive's balance sheet; in supporting provision of broadband to the last few houses that would not otherwise get it; and in funding investigation of PPPs? Where is the capital benefit that derives from those activities and goes on to the Executive's balance sheet? I do not necessarily oppose them; I just want to know the accounting.
I will give the minister an extra minute. I will take it from Mr Stevenson's speech.
I am greatly obliged, Presiding Officer.
I am sure that Mr Stevenson takes an interest in those very technical matters, but the general public in Scotland are interested in where the investment plan will increase the stock of goods in our country and whether it will allow the important partnership between all the sectors of our economy to build the entire Scottish economy and make Scotland a far better place in which to live, work, visit and study. That is what is important.
It is also important that public sector managers understand and appraise all delivery options and select the way forward objectively, on the basis of optimum risk allocation and value for money. The plan shows consistently high levels of investment over the next 10 years at least.
The challenge to industry is to match skills and resources to meet the investment plan. We want to give a clear sight of the nature, value and timing of all investments requiring a market response, in a United Kingdom and a global market context. All that will be backed up by other initiatives, such as industry days, website information and more intimate engagement with the public and private sectors to make sure that they are aware of all the opportunities that the plan provides. The market has choices and Scotland has to be smart and attractive with its projects and procurement management.
The ambitious plan is an important building block in the Scottish Government's arrangements, in which we will provide open information about forward plans and work with the public and private sectors to create sound infrastructure over the long term. That is an appropriate approach for a modern democracy.
I need hardly say that infrastructure investment in Scotland should be important to us all. It is important to see the plan through for the benefit of the people of Scotland now and in the medium and long terms. I welcome the opportunity to debate aspects of the plan today. I hope that members will join us in contributing to that debate and assist us through what they say in our engagement with the public and private sectors so that we can outline the genuine opportunities for business in Scotland and, through that process, improve our country, grow our economy and make Scotland the best small country in the world.
I move,
That the Parliament welcomes the record level of infrastructure investment, as set out in the first infrastructure plan for Scotland, Building a Better Scotland: Infrastructure Investment Plan: Investing in the Future of Scotland; acknowledges that the plan addresses the problems bequeathed by decades of underinvestment; recognises that the Scottish Executive is open to working across the public and private sectors in order to ensure that Scotland has the modern infrastructure that is necessary to support economic growth and secure an improved quality of life for the people of Scotland, and agrees that the infrastructure plan will deliver, for the long term, better public services, improved transport infrastructure, modernised colleges and universities, new hospitals, improved housing and new schools.
In discussing issues such as the infrastructure investment plan with the Scottish Executive, I begin to feel like a golf instructor whose pupil never quite manages to be competitive because he always leaves half his clubs at home and, although he makes some of the right moves, can never compete against others who are equipped with the full range of skills. However, unlike such a golf instructor, I have the comfort of knowing that Scotland has no option but eventually to use all the tools that it needs. Scotland must be more competitive and it must do better, because there is simply too much at stake for us as a nation. That is why I would prefer to focus on building Scottish skills, capability, infrastructure and competitiveness with all the tools that are available to our competitor nations.
However, we are where we are and today's Executive motion, which is a much-puffed retrospective attempt to prove the existence of a better balance between capital and revenue spending, is not enough. In some ways, it is like Gordon Brown's decision to pass control of interest rates to the Bank of England—not so much evidence of good economic management as an exercise in belated learning from our European neighbours.
Most of our European neighbours have a much better track record on capital expenditure, with consistently higher levels of investment in their people and infrastructure over recent years. The sadness for us is that the Executive's plan is undermined by the failure to go the whole hog through completely following role-model countries in other monetary unions.
Let us look at what Gordon Brown has done. He did the right thing in removing political influence from interest rate and inflation level management, but he continues to impose tax harmonisation on Scotland. The Scottish Executive claims to have rediscovered the need to invest in capital projects, yet it chooses to have no meaningful revenue-earning capability and no means of increasing competitiveness, thereby putting itself in a position in which it cannot guarantee that Scottish capital expenditure will grow year after year.
I highlighted in my speech significant investment in our education and physical infrastructures. Do those things not lead to a more competitive Scotland that is better able to play its part in the world and better able to offer opportunities to our people?
That represents a significant catch-up, but the problem is that there is a hole in the bucket. Even if we educate our kids to a better level, if they leave Scotland, Scotland will not be advantaged in the way that I would like.
We read in yesterday's Financial Times that the International Monetary Fund describes the Treasury's forecast on UK tax revenues as
"somewhat more optimistic than warranted"
and calls for "more realistic" projections for economic growth and revenues. Even the current projections might not be fully delivered. That leaves Scotland more vulnerable, because Gordon Brown and the Scottish Government refuse to see the cracks that are beginning to appear in the current economic model.
The current model offers a system that tries to ignore and distort Scottish economic performance, while at the same time making economic growth its top priority. It is a system in which Government prefers to focus on UK growth, hiding much lower levels of growth in Scotland and preferring to heap praise on itself for returning Scottish taxpayers' money back to Scotland via the Barnett formula in a process that is meant to compensate us for being locked into a system that precludes our ability to compete and grow. What kind of arrangement is that? The model offers a settlement that no self-respecting state in the United States of America or country in the European Union would consider. It is surely time to make the point that it is necessary to allow constituent members of monetary unions—be they denominated in dollars, euros or pounds—to control their own taxes.
Will the member give way?
Let me finish my point. I will share with members a quote from an important editorial in The Economist in January, which said that when countries
"shed their … monetary and exchange rate policies, they need more fiscal independence, not less."
Why did The Economist editorial say that? In a word, the answer is experience. Perhaps the experience of Scotland amply demonstrates what happens when a country lacks economic powers; certainly experience on the positive side, from the United States, Europe and the new European Union accession states, shows a definite small country-big country pattern whereby smaller countries that are close to larger neighbours have to be more competitive and flexible.
Will the member give way?
Will the member give way?
I will give way to Des McNulty in a moment.
The phenomenon is discussed every week in The Economist. It is a self-evident truth, which is increasingly supported in Scotland and is dismissed and denied only by the representatives of vested interests, such as Des McNulty. For that reason, I will take an intervention from Des McNulty.
When will Mr Mather address the infrastructure investment plan for Scotland? His speeches have a habit of making us feel more and more as though we were experiencing "Groundhog Day". It would be interesting to hear him address the issues that are involved.
I will not justify Des McNulty's nihilistic approach, which would paint Scotland into a corner where it must accept a declining population and low economic growth, and I will not grace the infrastructure investment plan with the suggestion that it offers the solution, because it is only part of the solution, as members of the Executive parties know in their hearts. Outwith the Parliament, the majority of committed people in Scotland want the Parliament to have more economic powers. We will secure those powers—and that positive view demands support and focus, which it gets from me.
I have no time to castigate Des McNulty on his approach—I will leave that for future generations—but I will paint a positive picture of what should and could happen in Scotland if we were to combine the increased capital spending with increased powers. In such an environment, we would make Scotland competitive and our economy would grow and converge on the higher levels that are enjoyed elsewhere.
The chief economist of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Jean-Philippe Cotis, made a point last week that illuminates the debate. He said:
"At the end of the day, being unable to converge is nothing other than losing the capacity to learn from others and their successes."
That is what we are witnessing from members.
Will the member give way?
Jeremy Purvis should hear what Jean-Philippe Cotis went on to say. He said:
"Regaining this capacity to learn implies first an ability to situate oneself on the international scale and to evaluate the gaps that need to be bridged."
In a spirit of consensus, and given that other small countries and small companies can provide such information, I suggest, first, that the Scottish Executive would do well to provide objective data that show where its business—Scotland—currently sits on the international scale. I suggest that the Executive consult the report of the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland. Secondly, I suggest that the Executive use that source and other sources objectively to evaluate the gaps. Will the Executive genuinely do that? I do not think that it will, because such an approach would subject its performance to a rigorous audit and expose the absence of effective evaluation and the weakness of an approach that tries to fix an economy with a limited subset of tools, of which the infrastructure investment plan unfortunately represents a classic example.
I move amendment S2M-2554.1, to leave out from "acknowledges" to end and insert:
"and regrets that this investment is not being matched with other credible measures by the Scottish Executive that could genuinely and incrementally increase sustainable economic growth in Scotland."
I call Brian Monteith to speak to and move amendment S2M-2544.2.
Just read it out, Brian.
I am rather tempted just to read out the amendment and then sit down, but such is the length—
I do not think that there is time for you to do that.
Such is the amendment's length in listing the Conservatives' infrastructure achievements that I know that reading it out would take up too much time, so I will make a speech instead.
I am pleased to speak in the debate, if only to set the record straight. The Conservatives have no difficulty in supporting the Government's improvements in infrastructure, be they improvements to the transport network or the building of new hospitals, galleries or schools. We will give the Executive our support on those matters. However, for the minister to present his proposals as necessary because of decades of dilapidation, neglect and underinvestment, as mentioned in the plan and the motion, is to behave in a crass and partisan manner. The First Minister says that we should avoid doing that and that we should raise our game. He must be desperately disappointed in such a display of backward behaviour from his ministerial team.
My amendment contains only a short list of some of the infrastructure improvements that were made when the Conservatives enjoyed their 18 adventurous years in power. The list is not comprehensive—indeed, I think that we have probably forgotten more than we have remembered. In fact, a member of the public who was visiting the Parliament today volunteered the names of two more hospitals—one in Campbeltown and one in Oban—that were not included in the amendment. Furthermore, only this afternoon, Jamie McGrigor—I almost said Jamie Stone, but he is not in our party yet—passed me a note with a further list of more hospitals that could have been added. Such is the number of the Conservatives' achievements.
I note that Mr Monteith's amendment claims credit for dualling the A90 and key sections of the A96. When did he last drive the full length of the A90?
I cannot remember when I last did so, but I know that I am doing so on Saturday to watch Hibs in Aberdeen.
I do not suggest that the improvements in my amendment were achieved only by the Tories; many of them were achieved in partnership. Partnership is important. Of course, many of them were achieved in spite of the bitter opposition of those on the Executive benches. However, to justify their failure to deliver so little in the past five years and to justify the increase in spending, ministers need to pretend that nothing happened before they took office.
So mean spirited and self-delusional is the coalition Cabinet that I can just see some of the ministers sitting huddled together like the characters in that famous sketch in one of my favourite films, the "Life of Brian". At a meeting of the popular front for the liberation of Lanarkshire, three men are sitting with towels on their heads. Comrade Tom says, "What did the Tories ever do for us?" "Yeah, what did the Tories ever do for us?" says Comrade Jack. Then Comrade Andy pipes up: "Yeah, what did the Tories ever do for us, apart from modernising the roads?" "Yeah, modernising the roads," says Jack. "Okay, what did they ever do for us apart from the roads?" asks Tom. "And the hospitals," says Jack. "And the rail electrification," says Andy. "Okay," says Tom, "what did the Tories ever do for us, apart from modernising the roads, the rail electrification, the hospitals, the power stations, the galleries, the museums, the theatres and the airports?" Need I go on? I think that members get the point. "Yeah, what did the Tories ever do for us?" they say, as they take the towels off their heads and leave the staff sauna in Victoria Quay, also built for them by the Tories.
The problem is that the Scottish Government has shown itself to be singularly inefficient at spending the money at its disposal. I have not listed what all the Conservative achievements cost, because that is not important. What is important is that those improvements were made and brought about an improvement in services. Waiting lists and waiting times started to fall. The rise in crime was halted. Our goods and services could get to market more efficiently and our commuters saw improvements in journey times. In short, standards of living improved for the majority of people.
Mr Monteith suggests that the people of Scotland were ungrateful in 1997. Given all the great work that he has said the Tories did, can he tell us why the Tories were wiped out in Scotland in 1997?
There is absolutely no point in trying to cover old ground. What I am doing today is offering a hand of friendship. I was keen to support the minister and his motion, but he has removed that possibility by saying that everything is the Tories' fault. It is not the Tories' fault; we can build a better Scotland together. That is what raising our game is all about.
I notice that the clock is running, so let me close with an example of why we do not trust the Executive to deliver. If we consider the figures for spending on housing, which is an important component of capital spending, we find that since 1997 the real-terms spend has been less than in the final year of the Conservative Government. In 2003-04, the spend was £243 million, compared with £412 million in 1996-97. Even in 2005-06, the spend will still not be higher.
We welcome the expenditure on infrastructure and will support the Executive. However, let us be honest; trying to pin the blame for the current situation on the problems of the past does not make the Executive's plans any better or any more acceptable.
I move amendment S2M-2554.2, to leave out from "welcomes" to end and insert:
"recognises the substantial level of capital invested in infrastructure in Scotland by successive Conservative governments between 1979 and 1997 which included, amongst many projects, the M8 motorway extension, the Edinburgh City Bypass, upgrade of the A74 to motorway status, the first M77 motorway section, dualling of the A90 and key sections of the A96, the Dunblane by-pass, dualling of sections of the A9, dualling of the A1 between Edinburgh and Haddington, the St James Interchange at Glasgow Airport, dualling of the northern stretch of the A737, dualling of the A78 to by-pass Troon and Loans, dualling of the A71 from Irvine to Kilmarnock, the Dornoch Firth Bridge, the Kessock Bridge, the Kylesku Bridge, reopening of the Edinburgh to Bathgate railway line, electrification of the East Coast main line, electrification of the North Berwick spur line, electrification of the Glasgow to Ayr railway line, the Skye Bridge development, a new ferry service between Campbeltown and Northern Ireland, a new air traffic control centre, the redevelopment of Aberdeen Airport, £8 billion invested in council houses across Scotland, the New Life for Urban Scotland programme, Western Isles Hospital, Caithness Hospital, medicine for the elderly wards and a day hospital at Perth Royal Infirmary, a neo-natal intensive care ward and a midwife-led unit at Forth Park Hospital, a new phase of the Queen Margaret Hospital in Dunfermline, St John's Hospital at Livingston, Ayr Hospital, major refurbishment to Stirling Royal Infirmary, major refurbishment to Falkirk Royal Infirmary, HM Prison Shotts Phase 2, Peterhead Power Station, Torness Power Station, Greengairs Power Station, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, the Dean Gallery, the Royal Museum of Scotland extension and renovation of the National Library of Scotland; recalls that many of the infrastructure achievements that the Scottish Executive now takes credit for, such as seven new hospital developments, namely the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, Wishaw General Hospital, Hairmyres Hospital, East Ayrshire Community Hospital, Glasgow Royal Infirmary extension, the Western General Hospital extension and Southern Isles Community Hospital, were in fact part of the Conservative Scottish Office programme; reminds members of the Parliament that the Scottish Office between 1997 and 1999 postponed further infrastructure projects by introducing a moratorium on roads spending for two years which delayed initiatives such as the A8000 upgrade to dual carriageway, the new Kincardine Bridge, the Kincardine Bypass and the M74 extension; is pleased to celebrate this year the 10th anniversary of the National Lottery which brought a new and very substantial income stream for capital investment in public buildings that would otherwise not have been built or renovated; notes that increases in spending by the Executive have not led to improvements in service delivery; believes that the Executive has thus far demonstrated that it has a poor record of spending taxpayers' money wisely; welcomes the fact that the Executive is open to working across public and private sectors in order to ensure that we have the modern infrastructure Scotland needs, and believes, however, that in order to support economic growth the Executive needs to cut business rates to at least the same poundage as in England, invest more significantly in roads and transport, open up Scottish Water to full competition and greater investment through privatisation and cut red tape."
What we have just heard was not so much the life of Brian as the search for the holy grail.
Two months ago, an accountant friend with one of the leading firms in Scotland was giving me the benefit of his opinion of the work of the Scottish Parliament. From his point of view, there had been an admirable concentration on repairing and improving the social fabric of our society, but he felt that the failings of the infrastructure of our nation were not being addressed to the same extent and that Scottish business was being disadvantaged as a result. His views were probably crystallised by the low level of capital investment in Scotland in the latter half of the 20th century. Although I initially looked at Brian Monteith's list with some awe, I soon realised that it covers an 18-year period, whereas today we are talking about the period up to 2007-08.
Can Mr Arbuckle give me a list of infrastructure projects that have been completed in his and my region of Mid Scotland and Fife in the past six years?
I will provide that information after the debate, because I do not wish to take up all my time by doing what Mr Monteith did. Today we are considering our long-term investment plans and I am sure that my accountant friend will change his mind.
It is difficult to imagine the sheer scale of expenditure contained within the plan, especially when the figures are rolled up and the zeros are lopped off the end for the sake of simplicity. The temptation for lesser financial mortals must be to see the sums as large heaps of £1 coins. However, for those of us who can visualise the scale and range of the work ahead, the evidence is of record expenditure on roads, schools, higher education establishments and hospitals.
As someone who is moving up into one of the older age brackets, I am pleased to see the long-term commitment to improving the services that will provide the framework for our society for the next generation. There is a saying in agriculture that we live for today but we farm for tomorrow. That means that all our efforts should be channelled into making the land better for those who are coming behind—the next generation. I hope that in future years the people of Scotland will be able to say that, at the start of the 21st century, the Scottish Government invested in the future. I believe that the investment plan will be of long-term benefit to this country, its people and its economy.
It is impossible to cover all aspects of the investment plan in a few minutes, but I will say that I approve most heartily of the link-ups that are now planned for our transport system. For decades, airport users from Fife and the north have bemoaned the fact that they were transported along a railway line that went within yards of the airport terminal but that the—here I have an adjective blanked out—train did not stop until it reached central Edinburgh. A much-needed link is also planned for Glasgow airport. Those two projects alone will help to provide a better balance in our transport usage.
The developments in Kincardine and the reopening of the Stirling to Alloa railway line will also reduce pressure on the Forth road bridge. At long last, in that and in other transport initiatives, we are employing much-needed joined-up thinking. Although "joined-up thinking" is a cliché and seldom exists in reality, we have it in the investment plan. We are considering different transport systems to provide for Scotland's future needs.
As part of my homework before I joined the Finance Committee, I read a few of the committee's papers and noticed concerns about the consequences of short-term planning for capital works. I hope that members from all parts of the chamber will acknowledge that we now have a massive increase in expenditure married to cross-sector objectives and that the plan represents a framework for the long term.
My one concern about the plan, as with any major capital investment programme, relates to the timescales. Any development that disturbs local communities normally provokes two views: some want the development to progress to fruition at top speed, whereas others feel that they are being imposed upon either during construction or following completion. A great deal of consultation will need to be carried out by the development companies and agencies if they are to ensure democratic involvement as the plans progress. Let us hope that developers find the right balance between those two conflicting forces. As Scottish Water and local authorities have already experienced, it is easy for the timetables for large-scale schemes to slip as they go through the democratic process.
I have no doubt that those who maintain a permanently bleak view of the Scottish economy and those whose pet projects are not included in the long-term plan will use this opportunity to carp and complain, but that is democracy. However, I believe that the infrastructure investment plan represents the biggest joined-up investment plan that Scotland has ever known. We should welcome it.
Of course, the "Life of Brian" ends with Brian on the cross singing "Always look on the bright side of life". That might be a metaphor for the text of Brian Monteith's amendment. Although the amendment identifies a fairly long list of projects, it can be argued that the Conservatives conducted an infrastructure non-investment plan during their 18 years in power. I well remember that, during the final two years of Conservative rule, the deputy director of education for Strathclyde Regional Council, David Montgomery, told councillors that, at the existing rate of replacement, each school in the region was expected to last for 400 years. Subsequent to the Conservatives' removal from power, Glasgow City Council, North Lanarkshire Council, South Lanarkshire Council and councils throughout Scotland have been able to put in place substantial school building programmes that have significantly increased the level of investment in education. I believe that that has transformed the quality of education that is delivered.
Mr Monteith pointed out that West Lothian benefited from the reopening of the Bathgate to Airdrie line, but that was only because it was paying the price of 20 per cent unemployment. Does Des McNulty agree that, whereas the Tories invested only to address economic failure, we are investing to ensure Scotland's continued economic success?
Bristow Muldoon is quite correct. We can also point to other areas of investment. Investment in our water and sewerage infrastructure is currently running at £40 million a month. I suspect that it was running at less than £4 million a month during the Conservative years. That reflects a huge step change, which has been cumulatively arrived at.
Will the member give way?
I will, but let me finish this point.
The infrastructure investment plan comes on top of a doubling of capital spending in the period between 2000 and 2004. Having doubled spending, we are now providing a further substantial increase, to the extent that capital spending is increasing at a rate that is twice as fast as that of the rest of the budget. That is absolutely in line with what the Finance Committee called for, but it represents a huge shift from what happened in the 1980s and 1990s.
Given the evidence that the large-scale building programme in the early 1960s meant that the hospital programme needed to be completed in the 1980s and 1990s, and given the fact that we have supported education private finance initiatives, which came on stream as a concept only in the mid to late 1990s, does the member not agree that, had we remained in power in 1997, we would have delivered new schools in Glasgow and the rest of Scotland using the same PFI-type schemes that the Executive has used?
The PFI-type schemes would not have been the same, because we have shifted the mechanism substantially. I claim an element of personal involvement in the Tory wipe-out in 1997, because I believe that the water referendum that we staged in Strathclyde in 1994 set the final seal on the Conservatives' loss of credibility across Scotland. One of the things that is particularly interesting in the Conservative amendment is the shift on Scottish Water, which comes right at the end of the amendment, and in relation to which they talk about full competition. Are they talking about privatisation? If so, that is a significant shift from what Brian Monteith was saying relatively recently.
I believe that the employment and job consequences of the investment package are considerable. We know that new capital investment—new schools, new hospitals and new roads—generates employment in the construction industry. I believe that it will also significantly enhance productivity. We should not be frightened of saying that investing in the public sector is a mechanism for generating new and higher levels of productivity. In the investment plan, the Executive has identified the key priorities for Scotland, which are transport, schools and hospitals. We need to identify the mechanisms that underpin economic growth and can drive it forward, to stimulate the economy in a way that benefits everybody.
I am also pleased by the plan's emphasis on targeting resources on deprived areas. The one area of disappointment that I want to flag up is that the plan does not specify how that targeting would be achieved, nor does it put any numbers to it. I believe that deprived areas of Scotland—particularly areas such as those that I represent in Clydebank, which is similar to places such as Inverclyde, Glasgow and Renfrewshire—require some kind of priority in terms of investment. We should not be allocating resources purely on a population basis; proper account must be taken of need. I certainly hope that, in implementing the plan and particularly in looking at the balance of the transport commitments, there will be some acknowledgement of the need that exists in west central Scotland, especially in deprived areas such as Clydebank and those areas represented by the members round about me.
I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate. I start by congratulating members of the Finance Committee and Des McNulty, the current convener, on their work over the period since the Parliament came into being in helping the Executive and the Parliament to improve the factual basis upon which we hold debates such as this. The draft budget this year improves our access to and understanding of what is going on, compared with previous budgets. That is very much to be welcomed, just as the publication of the plan is to be welcomed. It shows an appropriate and urgent focus on raising our game in relation to infrastructure in Scotland, and it enables us to debate on the basis of plans that the Executive has laid out. That is all very welcome indeed.
Before I get into the meat of the debate, however, I would like to talk to the Hibs supporter on the other side of the chamber for a moment. Unlike Mr Monteith, I am all too aware that the A90 does not stop at Aberdeen. It continues on through Peterhead to Fraserburgh. I am not the only member of Parliament who has constantly raised the need to dual the A90 north of Aberdeen. Mr Monteith's Conservative colleagues Nanette Milne and David Davidson have also called for that improvement, and I welcome that. For that matter, Nora Radcliffe also supports the dualling of that road, so it is a matter of cross-party agreement.
If Mr Monteith is going to lodge long, rambling amendments, he should at least try to get them right. Furthermore, when given the opportunity to show just a little humility he should, for once, take it.
That is the pot calling the kettle black.
I make no claims myself—no claims whatsoever.
There is not one dual carriageway north and east of a line from Elgin to Ellon. The Tories certainly did not help us on that score; perhaps the current Administration will.
I will welcome some specific measures in "Building a Better Scotland: Infrastructure Investment Plan: Investing in the Future of Scotland" shortly. However, I can never resist an invitation to take the opportunity to be a wee bit tactical, so I invite Mr McCabe to consider the International Financial Reporting Interpretations Committee's deliberations. The committee's work is designed to ensure that countries across the globe apply similar standards, so that we can account for the activities of multinationals. Many of the new standards will apply to us from 1 January 2006. In particular—I have referred to this subject previously—IFRIC draft interpretations D12, D13 and D14 refer to how to deal with assets in a public-private partnership situation.
Kilmarnock prison, which was discussed earlier today, currently appears neither on the Executive's balance sheet nor on the balance sheet of Kilmarnock Prison Services Ltd. In fact, the company's 2000 accounts show that the prison was sold to the Home Office—it meant the Scottish Executive, but in either event it was wrong. There must be more clarity in PPP arrangements. One of the reasons that we have rather sterile debates on the subject is that we do not have possession of all the facts that are necessary to promote debate. I hope that the minister will consider the issue and continue the good work of developing the way in which figures are presented to us in the Parliament.
I will be parochial for a moment and welcome very much the confirmation, on page 33 of the document, of the £6.9 million for Chalmers hospital in Banff. I also welcome the fact that there will be money to extend broadband to every community in Scotland. However, I ask the minister to what extent that applies to individuals in Scotland who are part of communities that have broadband, but are technically at the end of infrastructure that is incapable of supporting it. I have constituents who are in that position. They would very much welcome hearing from the minister that they will have support.
The figure of £107 million is given for spending on information technology infrastructure for the health service over the next three years. That is welcome, but it is a huge distance back from the £8 billion that the English and Welsh health service is investing in a patient record system. One of my enduring concerns about NHS 24 is that, although it is a welcome way forward, it makes the health service less efficient if it does not have the infrastructure with which it could operate efficiently. The same is true for the arrangements for out-of-hours services. Because they have no access to patient records, they must waste time discovering what the health service more generally already knows. That £107 million figure must, when the money is available—I hope that the minister can tell us when that might be—rise dramatically.
I am not terribly convinced that capital funding for Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd is a good investment, based on its track record so far. I hope that Oban airport remains with the private company that so effectively operates it.
I welcome the fact that there is a phase 2 in the estates review of the Scottish Prison Service. There must be new investment in the north-east of Scotland. Peterhead prison is generally acknowledged to be no longer fit for purpose.
I have covered a series of items in the document, but the one thing that is still missing is a statement of assets and liabilities. The document states:
"For accounting purposes, capital spending"
is something that is on the Government's balance sheet. It is time that we saw that balance sheet, saw what assets we have and saw whether they are working to our benefit or otherwise.
"Building a Better Scotland" is another of the worthy phrases that we get from the Executive that implies constant progress. Participles such as "working", "building" and "saving", which are so beloved of Executive spinners, usually mean precisely the opposite; so it is with "Building a Better Scotland" and the Executive's first infrastructure investment plan.
In his introduction to the plan, the Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform states:
"We know that sustained investment in the physical fabric of Scotland will help us to create a prosperous Scotland where enterprise can flourish."
If that is the case, why is enterprise failing so lamentably to flourish in Scotland? Why, after six years of this Executive, has there been no increase in entrepreneurial activity?
Will the member give way?
Perhaps a little later.
On business formation, why, out of 38 countries, is Scotland at the bottom of the league and Ireland very near the top?
On new businesses, why is the rate of start-ups in Scotland around half of that in London, and why, according to figures issued only last week, are business start-ups in Scotland down by another 3 per cent on last year? Why are corporate failures in Scotland rising, in sharp contrast with those in England? The number of firms going to the wall in Scotland rose by 14.2 per cent last year, but fell by 5.6 per cent south of the border.
Tom McCabe claims that growing Scotland's economy is the Executive's top priority, yet the respected economist Peter Wood recently told the Finance Committee that while the framework for economic development states that public expenditure proposals are evaluated for their social, economic and environmental impacts,
"This does not, in itself, establish that economic development is receiving any particular degree of priority in decision-making since it is not known how economic"
developments "are being measured". In other words, how can Tom McCabe say that his vaunted investment in infrastructure is creating a Scotland where enterprise can flourish, when the Executive apparently has no means of measuring the situation?
On health care, Peter Wood stated:
"FEDS states that health care is important to economic development but there is, from available information, no way to establish readily to what degree the observed growth in health spending (up 55% in real terms between 1996 and 2005) is on services which will improve the health of working people."
Again, there is no means of measuring that.
On transport, Peter Wood noted:
"Executive spending … grew in real terms by 66% between 1996 and 2005."
The member referred to there being no way of measuring our successes. Does he accept that the facts that life expectancy is increasing in Scotland and that we have the second-highest level of employment in Europe, second only to Denmark, are indicators that we are living in an increasingly successful country?
Those may be indicators of something, but not necessarily that the Executive's priorities are creating those results.
In his evidence to the Finance Committee, the Minister for Transport stated that appraisals of road projects tended to show greater economic gains than did appraisals of other transport projects. Despite that, there has been a marked shift away from road building in the transport programme. It is not only Scottish Conservatives who are highlighting an obvious absurdity, but one of the acknowledged leaders in his field, Peter Wood.
What is measurable is the gross capital expenditure in 1996, when the Conservatives were last in power, and that expenditure for last year. As Brian Monteith pointed out, the latest report on Scottish local government finance statistics shows that total capital expenditure has actually dropped in those eight years, from £1.058 billion to £1.033 billion per annum in real terms—it has actually gone down.
The real question, however, is not how much money is spent, but what value we are getting for that money. On health and education, despite spending more than virtually anywhere else in Europe, Scotland still lags behind.
I cannot pre-empt the forthcoming report of the Finance Committee on the cross-cutting expenditure review, which I think is due to be signed off next week, but judging by the external evidence heard by the committee and the critique provided by Peter Wood, which is already in the public domain, a mere 6 per cent of the Executive's £23 billion budget is spent on activities that are intended directly to promote economic development. Moreover, that item's share of the Scottish budget is falling instead of rising.
The hard fact is that, despite the minister's fine words about creating a prosperous Scotland where enterprise can flourish, there is absolutely no evidence that the overall pattern of spending on and investment in public services has been driven by economic development priorities. In transport, as we have seen, growth has been greater in less important economic activities than it has been in actual road improvement. On health, schools and housing, the Executive's strategy contributes even less to economic development.
Far from spending to help the economy, the Executive has contributed to ever longer waiting lists, more crimes and offences, and schools that do not meet even the Executive's standards. Does the minister really believe that that is building a better Scotland?
I am pleased to be able to contribute positively to this important debate. The Executive's commitment, at the time of the spending review in the autumn, to publish an infrastructure investment plan was important and welcome.
As the convener of the cross-party group on construction, I welcome the commitment that the Executive has made, as it will bring forward a much-needed, longer-term vision for that industry, as well as improved infrastructure planning. I believe that that is important for the people of Scotland—indeed, it is crucial to the construction sector. I welcome in particular the significant increase in infrastructure and investment funding, the improved co-ordination between the public and private sectors and the commitment to further improve the Executive's record on project delivery.
The cross-party group on construction recently produced a report, which is being considered by the Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning. We are pleased that he will be able to attend a meeting of the group at which the core issues that we have identified will be discussed. I know that Tom McCabe is aware of the report.
We looked first at procurement and workload, and skills and training. I will take a few minutes to outline some of the core issues in the report as I believe that they are important to the debate. On procurement and workload, we looked at the barriers to better public sector procurement, co-ordination of public sector programmes and procurement criteria for the selection of contracts. The group recommends that there should be a common format for the co-ordination of public sector construction programmes, which matter I have discussed with Tom McCabe. It also recommends a common format for the production of long-term construction programmes among the Scottish public sector agencies.
The Scottish construction industry needs security of workload in order to provide best value to its clients, security of employment to its workforce and, importantly, so that it has the confidence to invest in training and equipment. The group would like to see a comprehensive public sector programme for Scotland, as that would allow demand to be matched with industry capacity. I welcome the minister's commitment to that agenda.
As the minister indicated, capacity is crucial. If we are to continue to build capacity within the sector so that outputs can be realised—and I hope that Ted Brocklebank notes my emphasis on the word "continue"—we must give the industry the information that it needs to meet the challenges it faces.
Skills and training are key to the success of our strategy and, indeed, to that of the construction industry. I welcome the commitment that the minister made to that agenda today. The cross-party group and the construction industry forum have been looking at this very important area. The core areas that the cross-party sub-group has raised include: the mode of entry into the industry at both craft and professional levels; the opportunity for a clear progression through the industry; and the link between national and vocational qualifications.
The cross-party group is very interested in college provision and standards throughout the country and in the current funding mechanisms to encourage training at all levels. We are concerned that traditional trades might die out because of a lack of funding for training in the collegiate sector.
We need to look at the Scottish Enterprise programmes that are designed to respond to employer demand, as activity levels are being constrained by that demand. We must look at and find ways to stimulate demand from employers to recruit more apprentices in order to address the skills shortages. Work is also required to better promote the industry to young people, particularly those in the 14 to 16-year old age bracket. We need to make them aware of the opportunities that are available to them in the industry.
The issue of gender balance has been much rehearsed in the past few weeks within the industry. It is an important issue and was highlighted recently in an Equal Opportunities Commission report. The statistics, which I will not go into in depth, make difficult reading. Fewer than 4 per cent of members of the Institution of Civil Engineers in Scotland are female. Although we have worked hard and there has been an increase in the proportion of women at student level, female students still account for only 12 per cent of the civil engineering student membership. If we look at the same statistics for the Institution of Electrical Engineers and for electrical engineering student numbers, we see that the figures are 5 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. I think that all members would agree that the figures are not good enough.
I know that the minister will agree that the issue needs to be addressed. The cross-party group suggests that a national campaign should be developed to positively address the issue in partnership with the industry and with the support of the relevant industry bodies. The industry knows that it needs to address its image. It needs and wants to work with the Executive to look at the equal opportunities agenda. I hope that the minister will take up that challenge.
In conclusion, I congratulate the minister on his important statement. It rises to the challenge of delivering our objectives so that investment can have an effect on the ground—which is what is important—and can lead to the high-quality infrastructure that we all want.
The construction industry will work with the Executive to ensure that it continues to play its vital role in increasing and modernising our infrastructure, and in improving the physical fabric of the best small country in the world—Scotland.
As a former member of the Parliament's Finance Committee, I am pleased to take part in this important debate. Members will know that the committee took the stance that, in the budget documents, capital expenditure should be more clearly indicated. The committee also said that, in the budget rounds, increased resources should be directed towards capital investment. I am pleased that the Executive has reacted so positively to both those suggestions—suggestions that were consistent and, I hope, genuinely constructive.
The infrastructure investment plan is good on two grounds: first, it shows that the Executive listened to the Finance Committee's recommendations for clearer detailing of its capital expenditure; and secondly, it shows how committed this Executive is to investing in our core infrastructure across Scotland.
As Andrew Arbuckle and Marilyn Livingstone said, much of the focus is on delivery and the associated problems of ensuring effective and timely capital programmes. There is no easy answer to that.
There has been exhaustive coverage of one of Scotland's major capital programmes in recent years—this building. However, as we are embarking on what is probably the most comprehensive capital investment in a generation, it is right to consider planning and professional capacity in the construction and civil engineering sectors.
The planning reform process that is currently under way in the Executive is very important. I am pleased that the plan raises the issue of capacity in the construction and civil engineering sectors, as well as the need to ensure a streamlining of the planning process. In my constituency I have met, and attended meetings of, the Borders construction industry forum. The forum is a creature of the recognition that a major capital programme in the area required a response from the industry.
The transfer of housing stock from Scottish Borders Council to Scottish Borders Housing Association meant that the construction industry had to come together to allow the SBHA and Eildon Housing Association to communicate what would be expected of the industry and to begin to make linkages with training and employment issues that were affecting the area.
As the SBHA was being set up, it became apparent that a large supply of labour would be needed for a number of new local initiatives—such as the schools programme, health initiatives and a large amount of private building. If we take even just a quick look at the major investment that is taking place in the Borders, we can see that it is highly impressive. However, it will require a serious response to ensure delivery.
The Scottish Executive is providing nearly £9 million for Borders College to relocate within Galashiels and construct new teaching space, and to allow Heriot-Watt University to refurbish its existing space.
The Borders railway is a £150 million extensive infrastructure scheme. The more that I hear the Conservatives listing their infrastructure programmes, the more apparent is the absence of the Borders railway during each year of the 18 years of Conservative Government, when they rejected every approach from the local Liberal Democrat MP for assistance with the railway. Only with this Parliament and Executive are we seeing major progress.
Three new high schools will be constructed with a commitment from the Executive of £55 million. There is also health investment, with new build or extensions in Hawick, Galashiels and Kelso. Only this week, we heard the announcement of an 11 per cent increase in capital expenditure on health in the Borders.
The local council has a capital and prudential borrowing plan of £20 million for primary schools in the region. There has also been social housing investment of more than £5 million—which includes additional funding last year after a hard campaign for increased investment.
Scottish Water investment in the region is now at a record level. Yesterday, I was pleased to receive notification of work that is due to commence in Peebles, where there has been considerable development constraint.
Those are just the headlines, and just the public sector investment. The total is more than £250 million. That is not an aspirational figure; it is budgeted. If we add in the private sector investment—in Galashiels alone, there are new supermarkets and commercial developments of around £100 million, as well as zoned areas for new private housing of up to 5,000 units—we can see that capital investment over the next five years will put enormous pressure on the construction industry.
The Borders construction industry forum, as well as the national Scottish construction industry group and the Scottish construction forum, will look at how the procurement process can be modernised. They will also consider skills, training and the ability of the sector to absorb new levels of investment.
But what of the SNP amendment that we have been asked to consider? It calls for "other credible measures" to increase growth. That is rich; none of the economic or fiscal announcements that the nationalists have made recently—or, indeed, today—is credible. We should remind ourselves of what the SNP has said. This morning, it called for £1 billion more expenditure, but only a few days ago it said that it would reduce corporation tax and business rates revenue in Scotland by £900 million.
Will the member give way?
I will, although Mr Mather should be aware that he did not take my intervention. At that time, I wanted to make the point that much of his speech had been devoted to single markets, currency zones and unified and federal countries. However, he did not point out that they operate not under a system of fiscal autonomy, but under the system of fiscal federalism that I have been proposing. Perhaps in his intervention he will name one country among those that he mentioned that operates under a system of fiscal autonomy.
Jeremy Purvis knows that the Catalans, the Basques and many others operate under such a system.
But that is fiscal federalism.
The member has puffed up the spending plans. Can he tell me when the Executive will close either the economic growth gap or the life expectancy gap between Scotland and the rest of the UK?
Under this Scottish Executive, the investment of £250 million in the Borders is happening now. It does not depend on some bizarre theory about the use of all our oil revenues and is not some aspiration for the Scottish economy. We await with glee the SNP's credible policies. On 19 January, Christine Grahame said that we need to raise taxes, whereas Jim Mather has said that we need to cut taxes. However, members should not think that the SNP does not have a solution: only a few weeks ago, Alasdair Morgan said that we can do both. The SNP calls for credible policies, but none of its own policies is credible; it calls for economic growth, but none of its policies would deliver it.
In his opening speech, the minister said, as usual, that growing the economy was the Executive's top priority; as usual, I will take issue with that top priority of doing anything to achieve economic growth, irrespective of the negative consequences for future generations.
We have to move away from measuring gross domestic product, infrastructure and economic development purely in quantitative terms and towards thinking about quality of development. In the First Minister's remarks on the launch of the United Kingdom development strategy, I was struck by how right he was when he said that too many politicians of all parties find it easier to go for short-term gain, rather than long-term sustainability. I welcome that statement and his rejection of the idea that we should have economic growth at any cost.
However, I do not think that many of the infrastructure proposals in the Executive's plans measure up to his challenge or will deliver long-term sustainability. Instead, there is far too much emphasis on business as usual and economic growth at any cost. As a result, I urge ministers to review the policy in the light of the more enlightened remarks that the First Minister made on Monday.
Like Stewart Stevenson, I think that it is good that we have this document and this opportunity to debate long-term infrastructural issues and questions. For example, we need to discuss transport and the question of how people will get around in Scotland in future. I really welcome aspects of the document, and I believe that it is testimony to the success of devolution and the Parliament's limited powers that, unlike in England and Wales, new railway lines and stations are being opened. I also welcome investment in the water infrastructure and in new schools and hospitals. However, in such a debate, we must discuss key questions such as whether we are making the most of the infrastructure investment, and how it is being provided.
Like many people, the Greens are becoming concerned about how PPP and PFI schemes are turning out in practice and, in particular, the fact that they effectively mortgage the future. Because they have been tied into long-term 20 or 30-year PFI contracts, future generations will not be able to decide how best to invest in infrastructure. Underlying that is new Labour's ideological obsession with the belief that the market knows best. I wish that the minister and his deputy had been at the talk that was given by Professor Allyson Pollock, who examined the way PPP and PFI schemes have been fiddled to make it appear as though they deliver best value. She is among the most renowned health economists and was talking about how such schemes work in practice. PPP and PFI do not deliver best value; they are ideological obsessions.
Mark Ballard suggests that the world started the day we created PPPs. It was never the case that we built public sector facilities by walking up to a contractor and handing over a case of money; we always borrowed money for public sector contracts and the public sector always had the burden of repaying that debt over a long time. Nothing has changed.
Ownership has changed. A PPP is a 30-year contract with a provider to provide a school or hospital. That is not the same as borrowing to build a school or hospital—there is a big difference. I am not denying that the new schools and hospitals will be built by the private sector, but we must consider how the contracts work in practice. In particular, we must consider other social enterprise and not-for-profit alternatives for building new infrastructure projects if we are to get the best from that infrastructure in the future.
I welcome the investment in new railways that is detailed in the infrastructure investment plan and I welcome the fact that stations are reopening in Scotland when that is not the case in England and Wales, but Andrew Arbuckle was right to point out that there is also record investment in new roads. It is profoundly disappointing that, when we could be spending money on public transport alternatives that would improve quality of life and be of environmental benefit, hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on new roads that will have a negative impact on quality of life and sustainability in Scotland and will also have an opportunity cost.
I might be able to cheer Mark Ballard up. Figures show that in the last four years of the Conservative Government, 2.35 million square metres of trunk road were constructed or opened, compared with 0.57 million square metres in the first four years of the Labour Government. Clearly, the Labour Government is not performing as well as the Conservatives would like, but probably as well as Mark Ballard would like.
One of the concerns that I have about the new road schemes is that some of them, such as the M74 extension in Glasgow, are the most expensive urban options. The building of five miles of urban motorway on stilts will have a huge impact on the lifestyles of people in Glasgow.
There is much to welcome in the fact that we are discussing infrastructure investment, but I am disappointed that real opportunities for sustainable development have been missed in the infrastructure investment plan.
I was delighted to receive the compact disc of the infrastructure investment plan at the end of last month. I suppose that members might think that I was something of a sad character to be so pleased to see it. The reason is not only that I thought that it was of a singing duo of Tom and Tavish, but because time and again in conversation with people in the private or public sector, infrastructure investment is identified as a top priority and the most important measure for economic success. It is therefore to be welcomed that the Executive has produced a publication on that.
Jim Mather slightly missed the point of the debate, which is the essential contribution of infrastructure investment. We are talking not about fiscal autonomy—although he probably is—or population decline, but about how the public sector can invest in the country's future.
I am dismayed that Elaine Murray might be saying that population decline is not an issue. Will she clarify that?
I am not denying that population decline is an issue; I am pointing out that we are debating the important contribution of infrastructure investment.
There was a massive decline in public sector net investment from 5 per cent of GDP in 1963-64 to only 0.5 per cent in 1997-98. That is a tenfold decrease in the proportion of GDP that was allocated to public sector infrastructure investment over 34 years, during which time GDP almost doubled. Should I be surprised that the Tories were in power for 23 of those 34 years? Despite what is mentioned in Brian Monteith's excessively wordy amendment, we had an inadequate road system, crumbling school buildings, disastrous privatisation of the rail network and hospitals that were unfit for purpose. The Tory Government was clearly determined to clamp down on public expenditure.
Does the member recall from the history books that a war finished in 1945? Perhaps there was a great need for investment in infrastructure after that war, which would have required such things as roads and buildings to be the main focus of Government spending. Was not it the case that back in the 1960s the number of car owners was so low that investment in roads was smaller, but now needs to grow?
I disagree. My recollection of the late 1990s is that there was a serious need for investment in school buildings and hospital buildings, but it did not happen. I am not convinced that the Tories have much affection for the public sector; my fears were reinforced by Ted Brocklebank's speech. He seems to doubt that health is important for economic development. Why, if that is the case, does the Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland identify health as one of the top priorities for economic success and keeping the workforce economically active? The Forum of Private Business in Scotland found in its latest survey that 78 per cent of respondents thought that banning smoking in public places was essential to success. They realise that health expenditure is important; I do not know why the Conservatives do not.
In saying that the public sector is too big, right-wing commentators do not seem to realise that investment in the public sector creates opportunities for the private sector, such as for companies that are subcontracted to build houses, improve roads and install central heating.
Marilyn Livingstone made an important point about capacity. During the quality and standards II programme, Scottish Water was initially unable to spend its borrowing consent because of lack of capacity. I know that that is now being rectified and I hope that we will learn something from those problems, because there needs to be a fair amount of lead-in time for large-scale investments to ensure that the money gets out the door.
Mark Ballard made comments about PPP. I hope that school buildings would last a great deal longer than 30 years, but during the 30 years of the contracts, which Mark Ballard is so concerned about, the private sector investor takes the risk. What is different is that the local authority does not take the risk; the private sector investor does.
Will the member take an intervention?
No. I am sorry. I will have to press on, because I am getting to the end of my time.
I am pleased that the plan mentions investment in transport infrastructure, affordable housing, water infrastructure and flood-defence mechanisms, all of which are important in Dumfries and Galloway and which I am glad to see have been flagged up.
How will decisions be taken to allocate the available funding? The document says that
"Effective investment requires arrangements for consultation with consumers, trade unions, professional and voluntary bodies and other stakeholders."
I presume that those stakeholders are local authorities, local enterprise companies and the private sector. On reading the document, I could not get a handle on the mechanisms for how that will be achieved, although it was promised that it would be outlined in chapter 3. Councils and enterprise companies are asking how the decisions will be made.
The document mentions community planning and the example of good practice that is the north-west resource centre in Dumfries. The information in the document is a wee bit out of date in stating that
"a funding package has been confirmed"
for the centre. The money has been spent; the centre is up and running and is entering phase 3. I know that some of the minister's predecessors got the opportunity to see that example of good practice in community planning and I hope that the current ministerial team will also have an opportunity at some point to see what is going on there.
I welcome this first ever infrastructure investment plan for Scotland and look forward to monitoring progress over the years.
In the debate, the SNP has noted the underinvestment of the past 30 years. We also note that many other small countries spend a higher percentage of their GDP on public investment, so we have other measures against which to consider the Executive's plans.
We welcome the planned investment—totalling £513 million over the next three years—but we note the change in the Executive's targets regarding sustainability and innovation. As the First Minister said earlier this week, bringing about real change and developing Scotland more sustainably means building sustainable development into everything we do. I wonder how much of the infrastructure development plan reflects that sentiment and whether it is relevant in the context of the next few years. I warrant that the Environment and Rural Development Committee's report will suggest that there will have to be major changes in how we invest, particularly in relation to sustainability in housing and public transport. In the plan, the Executive tells us which elements it will spend on, but there may have to be a significant rejigging of those priorities.
I hope that Jeremy Purvis will note that Jim Mather talked about genuinely and incrementally increasing sustainable economic growth—the important point is that there be not just growth, but sustainable growth. Scotland is yet to have an Executive that takes that on board—the evidence that I have heard from ministers in various committees does not fill me with hope that they have done so.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry, but I have to press on. I will be happy to take interventions later, but I must make progress.
On 8 March I received an answer from Nicol Stephen to a question about rail infrastructure investment on the Perth to Inverness, Aberdeen to Inverness and Inverness to Thurso and Wick lines from 1987 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2005. He said in his reply that the information that I requested is not held centrally. It seems to me that if the Executive is to have an infrastructure investment plan and to state which areas are to be developed, it must get such information. Surely the fact that the information is not available is an indication that the proposals for transport in the plan have not been thought out as clearly as they should be.
I am worried about the matter in relation to comparisons between Scotland and other European countries. Where structural funds have been spent in countries such as Spain, Portugal and Italy, rail investment has made up between 10 and 20 per cent of the total. In the Tory years there was virtually no investment in rail, but in the past five years there has been little rail investment in the north of Scotland. I am glad that the suburban railway problem has been dealt with, but the longer routes, which include routes to the more remote parts of the south-west, the north-east and the north have yet to be addressed. The document ought also to address sustainability and the climate change imperatives, but it does not even mention them in outline. We need a change in the business case so that we can appraise railways in remote and sparsely populated areas appropriately. The Scottish transport appraisal guidance—or STAG—is fit for suburban railways and heavily populated areas, but Scotland is a country that has remote communities that can be reached only by crossing large areas of land. Some of those communities are quite large and need to be part of the action, but they will not be unless the investment is made.
Des McNulty talked about targeting deprived areas, but such areas include areas where populations are falling, such as the islands and the remote Highlands. On investment in ferries, I am at odds with the minister's sanguine approach to the question of whether we will get services that are fit for purpose. The Executive is frightened to go to Europe and say that the ferry services are essential services.
The question of state aid must be tackled. That issue arose recently when Ross Finnie spoke to farmers in Orkney about the movement of cattle from Orkney and Shetland to Wick. We are not putting those farmers at a competitive advantage over German, French, Dutch and Swedish farmers. The Executive must have the guts to go to Europe and fight for our remote areas, and it must make sure that the infrastructure plan—
Will the member take an intervention?
I am sorry, but I do not have time to take an intervention now. I would be glad to take an intervention in other circumstances.
On housing, we have heard that perhaps 700,000 households suffer from fuel poverty in terms of the real measures of sustainability, climate change and warmth. That is nowhere near being addressed by what we have before us, and unless we start to deal with climate change in the next 20 years and build it into our programmes now, we will not give our citizens the best chance to compete in the future. We welcome the changes, but the plan has many blanks that need to be filled in.
I am glad that we are having the debate and I am pleased to have heard confirmation in the minister's opening speech that the Executive's policy is to transfer ownership of hospitals and 300 schools by 2013 to banks, big building companies or transnational corporations—depending on where the contracts end up. We are supposed to be discussing projects for public investment in public infrastructure, but the truth is that the outcome in the next 25, 30 and 40 years will be that the assets that provide public services are no longer public.
The Tories have lodged an epic amendment—they have broken new records for the number of words. Am I right to assume that an election is coming up and that the amendment presents the Tory roll of honour from the halcyon days when the Tories governed Scotland as a minority Government? If that is the case, I suggest that they examine their public relations. Do they really want to take responsibility for the Skye bridge? Are they serious?
Yes.
Is the Skye bridge a successful project?
Yes.
That is interesting. The view of whether that project was successful depends on where one stands. The Skye bridge was a trail-blazer of a PFI project—do members not agree? The company that built the bridge got a 100 per cent return on its outlay. Thatcher always went on about the fall in industry profitability and the need for profitability to increase, so I am sure the Tories would love to congratulate Skye Bridge Ltd. The bridge cost it £27 million and it received double that from tolls and from the Scottish Executive buying the bridge. Do the Tories really want to take responsibility for the Edinburgh royal infirmary? Is that providing the same value for money?
It is not just socialist members or Mark Ballard and the Greens who talk about value for money. A role reversal has taken place. We are talking about value for money from projects for taxpayers, whereas the Tories are strangely silent about it. PFIs are a more expensive way to deliver public sector assets, to build new public sector buildings and to undertake public sector projects. That is what the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants says. Dr Allyson Pollock, who was in Parliament just before Christmas and who has written extensively on the subject, estimates that using PFIs doubles the cost of providing public buildings. The Major Contractors Group, which represents building firms, expects its members to make three to 10 times more money from PFI contracts than they would from traditional contracts. Who do we suppose pays for that? The simple answer is that it is the taxpayer.
The plan says that a need has been identified for three new prisons. Unusually, I will give the Executive a word of advice: do not use, for any of the new prisons, the consortium that built Altcourse prison in Liverpool, because that company broke even two and a half years into the 25-year contract. With 22 years to go, it is sitting there and raking in pure profit with no outlay. That is what PFI means for our public services. I am sure that the Tories would love to applaud the entrepreneurship of the company that built Altcourse prison as it rips off the taxpayer.
Mark Ballard was right to question the value of PFI. The minister says that contracts have always been awarded to the private sector. Of course they have, but the difference under PFI is in ownership. Not only have we awarded contracts to the private sector, we have transferred the assets to it. That revolution in public service assets was started by the Tories and has been continued by the Labour-Liberal Executive.
Is the minister saying that PFI is the only option? What would happen if, under best value, a council said to the Executive that it wanted to use a model other than PFI to build its schools or other developments? What would the Executive say to that? Would the council be allowed to borrow money, which would be cheaper? Would it be allowed to use a different form of public investment? It is not likely that a health board would say that it did not want to build a new hospital using PFI, because the boards are all stuffed with Labour placemen, but what would happen if one did? What would the minister say if a board told him that PFI would cost it double what it would otherwise pay and so did not represent value for money, and that it needed to represent the best interests of those whom it serves?
Why cannot we have an alternative means of investing in public assets? The real reason why is that most of what is spent on PFI projects is off balance sheet. We are not seeing where the money is, so that the Executive can meet the terms of the Maastricht treaty and the criteria that Gordon Brown has set for borrowing from the public purse. Let us have an answer to the question. To allow councils to borrow would represent value for money and is how we should invest in our public infrastructure for the next 30 years.
I do not often say this, but when I read the investment plan I got excited. It was not just because it came on a dinky little CD or even because Tom McCabe's face popped up on one of the first screens. It was because the document sets out what politics and government should be about, which is to deliver changes that bring about tangible improvements in people's lives. It is about giving people the schools, hospitals and other health facilities that they want, giving them the affordable housing that they need and ensuring that they have the transport infrastructure that enables them to move about, not just to do their jobs and to contribute to economic growth—it is a pity that Mark Ballard has left the chamber—but so that they can fulfil their potential and have social well-being in their homes and communities.
As well as being excited when I read the document, I was proud. I was proud that a Labour-led Scottish Executive had taken forward such a comprehensive programme of investment and change, and I was proud that we are able to invest on this scale because of the effective stewardship of a Labour Government at United Kingdom level. I was also proud that the document did not stop at the bricks-and-mortar arguments about infrastructure, but set out the links between infrastructure development and the wider range of the Executive's social and economic policy objectives.
The document also raised questions for me and challenges for all of us. I will say more about those in a moment. However, before doing so, I need to comment on some of the speeches that have been made in this afternoon's debate. Many members touched on legitimate points of debate and concern, but the two primary Opposition speeches were, shall we say, interesting. I remind Jim Mather and the SNP that this session still has two years to run. He would do well to write a new speech to take him through those two years, because his current speech is not just wearing thin—it is wearing out. Its relevance to today's debate was limited.
What I said is a fundamental truth that will not go away. I am sorry that Susan Deacon does not like it, but she should be prepared for it to come back time and again.
All Labour members are happy to engage in debate with the SNP on the kind of issues on which Jim Mather touched today. However, the public who are listening to the debate would like to know what the largest Opposition party in Parliament has to say on infrastructure. We listened carefully to Mr Mather's speech this afternoon, but we are still waiting to find out.
I turn to Brian Monteith's contribution. The world and Parliament would be poorer places without Brian Monteith. I do not know how many members have, like me, been following "Comic Relief Does Fame Academy", but every night I hope beyond hope that Adrian Edmondson will be brought back, not because he is a particularly good singer—his voice is incredibly ropey—but because his sheer entertainment value is immense. I have a similar feeling about Mr Monteith. His performance today, as ever, brought a smile to all our faces—it is just a pity that his analysis and recollection of history was decidedly dodgy. However, I thank him for at least giving us a chuckle.
I will address some of the challenges that the plan sets out. There are genuine challenges in progressing infrastructure development on such a scale and with the ambitions that the Executive has set out. We all have to rise to those challenges. As MSPs, we have to be willing not just to welcome the new, but to dispense with the old. It is easy for us to attend official openings of new facilities, but it is altogether harder for us to address difficult decisions about getting rid of bricks and mortar that are no longer fit for purpose. We also have to ensure that we do not adopt only knee-jerk opposition to potentially controversial developments in our areas when there might be good social and economic imperatives for those developments.
We have to be willing not just to be populists. Much is said in the Executive's document about transport and addressing issues such as congestion. Over the past few months in Edinburgh, I have become well fed up with people saying that they will support congestion charging, but not the particular scheme that was proposed at this particular time. If people support something in principle, they should present substantive ideas about what they will do to make a difference in the future.
There is a responsibility for Parliament to progress infrastructure development. I firmly believe that we need to get better and faster at making decisions and that we have to think twice about some of the consultation, legislation and regulation that we engage in. I cite as a case in point, as I have before, the development of Edinburgh's tram system. I am not sure that we will add value to the decision-making progress, but we are certainly adding years.
The Executive must address some of the deep-rooted systemic issues in its decision-making process to ensure that infrastructure reaches people quickly. A meaningful overhaul of our planning system is long overdue. Genuine effective joint working—not just talking the talk, but walking the walk—between Government departments and different agencies is much needed. Dare I say that a tad less civil service involvement with some of the details of business plans for small capital projects or amendments to local development plans might be welcome in order to expedite the delivery process?
I genuinely applaud the plan—it is ambitious, wide-reaching and people will benefit from it. However, the challenge for us all is to ensure that we drive forward the change further and faster, that we engage with the real issues and that we ensure that we make a real difference to the people of Scotland.
We have had some informative contributions this afternoon. Reflecting on the debate, I am struck by the fact that, once again, the genuine debate has been between the Executive and the Conservatives. Yet again we saw that trend, because the SNP was almost on a different planet. Again, the genuine opposition in the chamber has come from the Conservatives and I am sure that that position will be confirmed after the general election in a few weeks' time when we become Scotland's second party once again.
As we have come to expect, today's Executive motion boasts of record infrastructure investment. My experience on the ground is quite different. Looking at my constituency of Mid Scotland and Fife, I struggle to think of infrastructure projects that have been completed in the past eight years—the first two of which were under a Labour Government at Westminster followed by six years of the Scottish Executive. Because I was struggling, I asked Mr Arbuckle whether he could help me out by giving me a list of projects, but he was unable to help either. Perhaps he will give me a list later on.
Will Mr Fraser accept my offer to go round together and examine all the investments and improvements from the past six years? I warn him that it will be a long journey, not because my company is bad, but because there are so many examples to see. The only thing that I ask is that we take his car because I have to watch my travel expenses.
I am grateful to Mr Arbuckle for his kind offer, which I would be delighted to accept. Of course, he will have to allow much more time for the trip, because I will have to show him all the Conservatives' achievements in the area during their 18 years in Government.
Will the member give way?
Many members referred to the length of the Conservative amendment, but as Brian Monteith acknowledged, it provides only a partial list, because we forgot to include many of our achievements. I take comfort from the fact that Stewart Stevenson was able to find only one mistake in our long list, because that confirms that we were not too far away from the truth. I assure him that if we had been re-elected in 1997, we would have carried on the dualling of the A90.
I will give some examples of the Conservatives' achievements in Mid Scotland and Fife, starting with the health service: the construction of medicine for the elderly wards and the new day hospital at Perth royal infirmary in 1981; the new neonatal intensive care ward at Forth Park hospital in Kirkcaldy in 1982 and the midwife-led unit in that hospital in 1997; the refurbishment of Stirling royal infirmary; and Queen Margaret hospital in Dunfermline, which we commissioned and which opened in 1993. In contrast, during the past eight years, we have witnessed only the running down and closure of hospitals.
I will major on the failings of the past eight years in relation to transport, which Brian Monteith mentioned. In the final four years of the Conservative Government, 2.35 million square metres of trunk roads were constructed, compared with 0.57 million square metres in the first four years of the Labour Government. I make no apology for mentioning roads, because it is important to the business community that there should be an excellent road network, so that people can develop their businesses and send their goods to market, as Mr Brocklebank said.
Will the member give way?
Not at the moment.
When Mr Brocklebank mentioned the matter, Tavish Scott seemed keen to acknowledge the Executive's shift away from roads spending—albeit from a sedentary position—even though the Executive constantly tells us that growing the economy is its top priority and we know that the business community wants spending on roads construction to be a priority. It is simply a disgrace that after eight years there has been no movement to upgrade the A8000, which serves many people in the north of Scotland and is the direct link on the trunk road network from the Forth road bridge to Edinburgh airport and the south.
For clarification, where does the A8000 appear in the Conservative amendment?
Mr Scott well knows that the upgrading of the A8000 was in our plans in 1997. The moratorium that the Labour Party imposed when it came to power in 1997 prevented the upgrading from proceeding. Mr Scott's party has been in Government for six years but absolutely nothing has been done and I will take no lectures from him.
Where is the A8000 mentioned in the amendment?
Where is the upgrading? The Executive has had six years to produce the dualling of the A8000, but there is no sign of that happening.
Under the Conservative Government, the M90 was completed, the A90 was dualled as far as Aberdeen, the A9 was dualled between Stirling and Perth and sections of the A9 north of Perth were dualled. What a contrast—
Will the member give way?
Not at the moment.
I struggle to think of any major roads projects that have been completed in the past eight years, although there is so much more to be done. It is an absolute nonsense that the A9, which is the main trunk road that serves Inverness, the capital of the Highlands and the fastest-growing city in Europe for many years, should still be single carriageway for large stretches. We all know about the A9's reputation for having a high accident rate. The Executive should commit itself to dualling the A9 all the way to Inverness.
There should also be investment in improving road safety on other stretches of our trunk roads. The accident rates at a number of junctions on the A9 between Stirling and Perth suggest that the junctions are substandard. Indeed, a recent Scottish Executive survey identified that improvements were required to almost all those junctions. It is about time that the Executive started to put its fine promises into practice and to ensure that money is spent on upgrading such junctions to make them safer for road users and local residents.
Despite all the bluster that we have heard from the Executive, even the dogs on the street know that the Executive has a woeful record on infrastructure investment. Capital expenditure in 1996-97, the last year of the Conservative Government, was £1.058 billion in real terms. The figure fell as low as £873 million in 2001 and in 2003-04 the figure was £1.033 billion, which was still below the level of capital spending at the end of the Conservative period.
When we consider the infrastructure improvements that Scotland needs, the record of the Executive is six wasted years. It is a dismal record, of which the country should be ashamed.
Many members from all parties have been asking for the capital elements of the budget to be separated out and an attempt on the part of the Executive to do that is welcome.
As one who has often criticised the Executive for producing glossy documents, I congratulate it on producing a CD this time, even if it is glossy too.
When the comrades are in power, they like to produce plans, or what they call plans. That is meant to send a message that they are in control, that they know where they are going and that they have a strategic direction. Unfortunately, by and large, it is all window dressing. On my bookshelf, I still have an earlier example of the genre, which older members in the chamber might remember. It is the so-called "National Plan" that was produced in 1965 by the First Secretary and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs—such were the titles that were dreamed up when Harold Wilson did not quite know what to do with George Brown. The document runs to nearly 500 pages but it is not actually a plan; it is simply a recitation of facts and aspirations. The current version, which we are discussing today, will not take up as much space on the bookshelf, but it suffers from the same problems.
I looked up the word, "plan" in "The Chambers Dictionary". The definition is:
"a thought-out arrangement for doing something".
I think that that is the definition that most of us would use. However, not even the Government's supporters could claim that that is what is contained in the document before us.
What we have is a list—and not a very readable one—of things that might or might not happen. Clearly, an edict has gone out to all the Executive's departments, saying that they should write down everything that they can think of in relation to which they use the words "capital", "infrastructure" or "investment" and the responses have been stapled together and called a plan. That is how we have ended up with a document that has little coherence and does not take us much further forward than the last budget document. Indeed, sometimes the document goes pretty wide of what can be thought of as infrastructure. On page 60, we are told about the Log-In-Café in Barrhead. I am sure that that is a useful and popular facility, as are the other initiatives that are listed in that section, but does it rate a mention in the national infrastructure plan? If members think that that is bad, they should look at page 13, on which we are told about energy efficient light bulbs, which I am sure that everyone would agree should clearly be part of the national infrastructure plan. All that the document does not tell us is how many Executive ministers it would take to change one of them.
As we are talking about absurd commitments, would the member like to talk about Jim Mather's bull-sharing scheme for crofters, Fergus Ewing's proposal for reduced VAT for ski centres, which does not acknowledge the fact that we do not have that much snow anymore, and the proposal of his leader, Ms Sturgeon, for a Scottish foreign office? Are those the alternatives that the SNP wants to propose?
I do not think that we would call those elements of the national infrastructure plan, which is the point that I am trying to make.
The foreword to the plan says that our infrastructure has been damaged by
"years of underinvestment and neglect".
All of us, apart from the Tories, agree with that. However, there is no quantification of how much investment is required to remedy that neglect or any suggestion of how we will know when we have done so. I would have thought that we could have expected that.
The next sentence in the foreword says:
"Growing the economy is our top priority."
It is nice to have that confirmed, but nowhere in the document is there any analysis of how the individual areas of investment will contribute to that aim. We are left to assume that, almost by definition, investment in roads, rail, education and so on contribute to the primary aim of growing the economy. Such investment is a good thing, certainly, but the Executive provides no explanation of why resources have been allocated in the way in which they have been and gives no evaluation whatever of the relative importance of various sorts of investment to growing the economy.
The same paragraph also tells us that only long-term funding will achieve the goal of growing the economy. As usual, the Executive has got everything the wrong way round. It is only if we grow the economy that we are going to have long-term funding for anything. It is understandable that the Executive should make that mistake, because it is an inevitable consequence of the hand-me-down method by which the Executive is funded by the Treasury in London. That has serious consequences for any long-term planning in Scotland, which I assume is what infrastructure investment must be.
The hard fact is that Executive ministers are in control of their budget only until 2007-08. By then, or even before then, hard times will be coming. Even this week, the IMF warned Gordon Brown that the UK's fiscal position has deteriorated sharply over the past five years and suggested that now is the time to show restraint in current spending. Against that background, the Executive will have to answer the question of how it will fund sustained capital growth beyond the end of the next spending round. The dilemma is aptly demonstrated by the chart depicting road and rail infrastructure on page 29 of the document. I hope that the Greens were impressed by the CD version of the plan, which has all the rail projects in green and all the road projects in red. Of course, all the rail projects are to open lines that were closed by the same Labour Party.
The substantive point is that some of the more significant projects have timelines going into the 2010-11 budget year, and that is before projects are delayed as such projects almost inevitably are. I suggest that we should not count our chickens on the Edinburgh airport rail link, the Aberdeen western peripheral route or the A8 from Baillieston to Newhouse, because they are scheduled for 2011.
That is why Jim Mather spent so much time talking about why it is necessary to stimulate economic growth. We can fund the capital investment set out in the document only if we have a strong economy. The hard fact is that without control of our economic destiny, the document is not a plan; it is just a list of aspirations. Even worse, we are not likely to meet those aspirations unless Scotland gets control of her economy.
I sometimes wonder whether some members, not least Mr Morgan, have read the Finance Committee's report. As Des McNulty and a number of others pointed out, one of the building blocks that the committee asked the Executive to consider was the construction and publication of a capital or infrastructure investment plan. We have just done that; we have published the infrastructure investment plan to underpin the Scottish economy and its growth. We want real step changes in how public services are delivered throughout Scotland. We want to deliver real improvements in every aspect of Scottish life. That is why there is the degree of detail and the range of portfolio in the document.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I want to make a bit of progress first.
We want to eliminate the dilapidated public buildings and facilities that were left by the Tories; we want to improve the provision of public services; and we will provide new, modernised and improved services for the people of Scotland. The plan shows that this Administration is determined to achieve a radical improvement in Scotland's infrastructure that will have a lasting effect on people, communities and businesses throughout the country. The plan is a first and it will be updated as a standing feature of our efficient Administration. It will improve the information that goes to the private sector, as it will be informed of likely future projects. We expect the commitments given to be two way, so there is a challenge to the private sector to respond with sufficient capacity and skills to achieve our ambitious infrastructure improvements throughout Scotland.
Did the minister agree with Susan Deacon's earlier contribution for the Labour Party when she claimed the credit for the infrastructure investment plan for the Labour-led Executive and the Labour Government in London?
At First Minister's question time this morning, it struck me that we are in an election period and that there will be a ratcheting up of the rhetoric across the chamber.
I am very comfortable with a Liberal Democrat-Labour coalition that is delivering for Scotland. In this case, we are delivering a capital investment plan that is needed and which builds on the funding and investment that we have made. It will end the conflict between public and private sector delivery and recognise and use the best of both, celebrating successes as well as learning from mistakes. It will build the mixed-economy approach to funding. There will be conventional and partnership arrangements, PPP and a prudential regime, but the process will be managed. A current example of that mixed-economy approach is Glasgow City Council's use of the prudential regime to invest £25 million in its primary school estate.
Although I welcome the principle of increased infrastructure investment and the publication of the infrastructure investment plan, my concerns about the PFI/PPP procurement process that the minister mentioned are reflected in the recent decision on the Skye bridge scheme. Will the minister reassure all of us who share such concerns that PFI/PPP procurement processes will be subjected to rigorous scrutiny before they are agreed to and that they will be monitored thereafter to ensure best value?
As members would expect of any Government, all the funding mechanisms that the Executive uses are subjected to the kind of review and scrutiny that have been asked for.
PPP has delivered 80 schools that either have been completed or on which work is significantly under way. Those will benefit some 64,000 pupils across Scotland. It has also delivered three new major hospitals, nine water projects, three further education colleges and many other projects. Some £3.1 billion of projects that will use that mechanism are in the pipeline. That represents significant progress on our desire to invest for the long term in Scotland's public estate.
I will pick up some points that were made during this afternoon's debate. Given that Mr Mather was previously a member of the Finance Committee, I hope that he will reflect on the importance that the committee placed on having a capital or infrastructure investment plan as a building block for growing the Scottish economy. It was disappointing that he made no mention of that.
When Mr Mather's party produces its position on fiscal policy, monetary policy, interest rates and which central bank it wants, then we will be able to have a debate on the economy. The SNP failed to state its position this Tuesday in Dundee and it failed to do so today here in Edinburgh. It is about time that it stated its position. We are more than happy to have the debate on the economy.
Entirely missing from Mr Mather's speech was any mention of the "Framework for Economic Development in Scotland". The five key drivers for economic development that are identified in that document include investment in the country's electronic and physical infrastructure.
What can one say about Mr Monteith's speech? We are all happy to reflect on the Conservative years and the Conservative achievements, which Mr Fraser was so keen to mention. We will reflect on achievements such as the poll tax, 3 million unemployed and 15 per cent interest rates. It is funny that those were not included in Brian Monteith's amendment. One can only wonder why.
Having seen the long list of achievements that the Conservatives delivered, the minister clearly wishes to steer off the subject of infrastructure. May I point out that, between 1979 and 1997, male employment in Scotland rose by 33 per cent and female employment in Scotland rose by 60 per cent? That is a singular achievement of which we should all be proud.
I seem to remember that the Tory charge on unemployment was that it was a price worth paying.
I want to deal with a number of points that members raised. Des McNulty highlighted the importance of water and sewerage investment. As he rightly pointed out, the Tory solution appears to be privatisation.
Housing investment is arguably one of the most important long-term investments that we can make in the fabric of Scotland. Between 2005 and 2008, we will invest 46 per cent more in housing, over and above the current record levels of spending. Over the three years, we will invest £1.2 billion in affordable housing, which was never a priority for the Conservatives.
Stewart Stevenson questioned the level of capital funding for Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd. For many of us, HIAL is an important capital funding priority. If Stewart Stevenson wants to argue that it is a bad thing to spend £10 million on a runway extension for Sumburgh airport in my constituency, he and I will disagree.
Will the minister give way?
No, I will not give way.
Mr Brocklebank was keen to raise the issue of unemployment. He mentioned the current difficulties as he saw them. I can only repeat that Scotland has the second-highest employment rate in the European Union. It is second only to that of Denmark.
How many real jobs?
From a sedentary position, Mr Brocklebank asks how many real jobs that represents. That shows the Tories' contempt for the jobs that have been created since this Government came to power.
On transport, this Government will make no apologies for moving away from the Conservatives' approach, which was solely about road building to the detriment of public transport, towards a balanced approach that involves investment in rail, bus services and other public transport options. Under our 10-year transport plan, we will invest £1.4 billion by the end of the current parliamentary session. I hope that even Mr Ballard and the Greens will accept that that is a sustainable investment in the future.
Mr Fraser asked me about the A8000. Work will start on that this year.
Eight years on.
We will do it. They just planned it, but we will do it.
Rob Gibson raised a point about sustainability. There is a chapter on that, as I am sure he has read, in the document that we are discussing today, in "Building a Better Scotland" and in the spending review process. That theme is repeated throughout the investment plan and we shall build on that strongly in the coming years.
It was a delight to see Brian Monteith's amendment. It took us all back to student union debates and the length of amendments that I am sure he was proud of at that time. Usually we see such long amendments only from the Scottish Socialist Party, so there is yet another alliance across the chamber.
Brian Monteith's amendment states that the Executive
"has a poor record of spending",
but The Herald confirmed this morning that the Tories have no idea that they will do anything differently. They have abandoned their own Scottish James review before it is even started. They propose no efficiency savings in Scotland, and they have no plans and no thoughts on how to match this Administration's efficient government programme, yet the same amendment that criticises Government spending proposes more spending on roads and transport—really, just on roads—accompanied by tax cuts that would take away our ability to pay for those very same improvements.
There is a black hole at the heart of Tory finances, with massive spending promises and no money to pay for them. The English Tories have proposed £35 billion of cuts in England. The Scottish Tories claim that they will feed themselves off English cuts. One wonders how many English Tories know that Brian Monteith has not done any work in that area.
The SNP policy continues to be to tax and spend, and we have heard a little about that this afternoon. There is a £1 billion hole in the SNP's spending plans, simply to account for the announcements that SNP members have made this week, and there is no estimate of how long Mr Mather's trickle-down economics will take to work. That is not an isolated incident, of course. In December, SNP members told us that they would put a nationalised cap on council tax and, even this morning, Fiona Hyslop apparently announced another £18 million of local government spending on pre-school education. At the same time, the SNP proposes to cut hundreds of millions from local councils across Scotland. I think that most pre-school children would be able to work out that the SNP's sums just do not add up.
That sums up the choice before the chamber today. I saw in the papers on Tuesday that West Kilbride has become the unidentified flying object capital of Scotland—the top place for extra-terrestrial sightings, according to Ministry of Defence files. My message for stargazers everywhere is that, if they want to see black holes, they should just look at the Opposition front benches. The SNP and the Tories present us with two black holes, more spending and less tax. It does not add up. At least Alex Salmond got a laugh when he launched his manifesto by saying, "All it takes is imagination." I cannot imagine why members would support either of those parties today, but they should support our capital investment plan, as I support the motion.