Official Report 137KB pdf
Party Leaders
Women’s Health (Treatment Waiting Times)
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, starts tomorrow, and I want to wish everybody in the Jewish community a happy new year.
Today, the campaign against the dangerous downgrading of neonatal services was represented at a meeting of the Public Petitions Committee in this Parliament. Its message is clear: mothers and their children should not be put in danger due to Scottish National Party centralisation.
That is just one example of how the SNP is failing on women’s health. Statistics show that women in Lanarkshire face waits of more than four years for hysterectomies and that thousands of women across Scotland are currently waiting more than a year for gynaecology treatment, but what was John Swinney’s answer to this crisis in women’s health? He scrapped the role of women’s health minister. That is simply not good enough. Does the First Minister know how long, on average, women in Scotland have to wait for an endometriosis diagnosis?
First, I associate myself with Jackie Baillie’s comments about Rosh Hashanah, and I express my good wishes to the Jewish community on the celebration of Rosh Hashanah.
I also take this opportunity to indicate that tomorrow will mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy, and I will represent Scotland at a service at St Giles’ cathedral to commemorate those whose lives were changed irreparably by the 9/11 incidents.
Jackie Baillie raises significant issues in relation to women’s health, and I expect those to be taken forward by my all-female health minister team. I have three health ministers, all of whom are women, and I know from the leadership that the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care will give to that team that all those issues will be prioritised.
Women wait too long for treatment for endometriosis in Scotland, and the Government, as Jackie Baillie knows, is working very hard to ensure that waiting times are reduced so that treatment can be delivered in a credible and acceptable timescale to everyone involved, especially to women who suffer from endometriosis.
The answer that the First Minister was looking for was 10 years. That waiting time has got worse on his watch, and that was when there were two female health ministers. That is 10 years of women waiting in pain and having their struggles dismissed or diminished.
Women with endometriosis are not the only ones who are being let down in that way. After previous miscarriages, Elizabeth Crammond had a high-risk pregnancy. When she experienced bleeding and pain, she tried to contact the early pregnancy unit in Kirkcaldy. She asked for help 60 times but was not seen. Elizabeth was so desperate that she had two private scans, but, nine days later—nine days—when she was finally seen by the national health service, she was told that she had miscarried.
The Government’s miscarriage care framework states that women who are at high risk or who have complications should be able to self-refer to the early pregnancy assessment service. Why was that support not available for Elizabeth Crammond?
I am aware that Elizabeth Crammond has been in dialogue with Jackie Baillie on this question and that Ms Baillie has written to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care on the issue. We are exploring the circumstances that affected Elizabeth Crammond.
The most important thing that I can say at the outset is to express my sympathy to Elizabeth Crammond about the experience that she had. She should not have had that experience—I state that clearly to Parliament. We will have to get to the bottom of exactly why that was the case, because it is important that when there is any vulnerability whatsoever in relation to a pregnancy, the earliest possible intervention is provided. That is what the maternity framework is designed to offer. It has clearly not delivered that in this case. We must understand why that is the case and provide a remedy.
I appreciate that that will be of little consolation to Elizabeth Crammond, but part of what we must do when things do not go as they should is to be transparent and open about that and ensure that all steps are taken to ensure that the situation is not repeated in the future.
Elizabeth feels failed by NHS Fife and NHS Tayside, and that has left a devastating and lasting impact on her and her family.
However, her experience is not unique. There are lots more women in the same situation. Katie Lyon was pregnant following a previous miscarriage when she noticed spotting on 23 December. On Christmas eve, she had to go to accident and emergency because her condition had deteriorated and there was no capacity to see her in the maternity service. While Katie waited anxiously for news about her baby, the staff struggled to co-ordinate with gynaecology and maternity care. When she finally got a scan, no heartbeat could be found. It was another seven days before her miscarriage was confirmed, and then only after she had had two further scans.
Katie and Elizabeth are in the Parliament today to demand change. As Katie herself has said, families should not have to endure repeated loss before their concerns are taken seriously. The framework for miscarriage care is not working. Will the First Minister do the right thing and ensure that miscarriage care is urgently reviewed and women’s voices are heard?
Jackie Baillie has raised two particular cases—the case of Elizabeth and that of Katie. I am terribly sorry for the experience that those two women have had in our health services.
To come back to some of the points that I made in my response to Jackie Baillie’s second question, the framework for the delivery of maternity care should address the circumstances that Ms Baillie has put to me. It has clearly not done that. Jackie Baillie has put to me two cases in which that is very apparent.
That is why the Government has commenced a series of inspections of maternity services around the country. A range of unannounced inspections is being carried out by Healthcare Improvement Scotland, and the Government receives the reports on those inspections, which lead to action points. As has been rehearsed previously in the chamber, some of those reports require significant reforms and actions to be undertaken, the implementation of which the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Care is monitoring.
I am happy to explore the specific cases that Jackie Baillie has put to me, because it matters to me and to the Government that person-centred care is available for every person who interacts with the healthcare service in Scotland, regardless of the details of the case. We want to ensure that people get the best and most appropriate care. In the cases that Jackie Baillie has put to me today, that clearly has not happened. I apologise for that, and I will happily explore both those cases and will respond by providing as much information as I can to Elizabeth and Katie, to whom I express my sympathy and empathy for what they have experienced.
Scottish National Party Priorities
While I was in the BBC studio on Sunday, getting wired up for my final interview of an eventful weekend, I was forced to listen to the first interviewee droning on and on for 15 minutes without answering a single question. To stop myself drifting off as the First Minister talked himself into oblivion, I reached for The Sunday Times. What did I see on the front page? I saw the new column by none other than the former Deputy First Minister, Kate Forbes. Does the First Minister agree with her commonsense analysis on North Sea gas—[Interruption.]
Excuse me. Let us hear the question, please.
On defence and on taxation, she said:
“the less complex a tax system is, the better … you cannot tax your way to growth.”
Does that sound familiar? Will the First Minister look forward to reading her column in the weeks to come?
I am always interested in lots of views that are expressed in political debate. I have to listen to them all, and it is not my fault if the BBC wants to put me on in a prime spot instead of Malcolm Offord. That perhaps speaks volumes, but I am sure that Mr Offord, listening down the line from the Reform-fest, where members of the public were being assaulted in the conference hall, would learn a lot from the dignity with which I expressed my case on Sunday morning.
Turning to serious matters, Màiri McAllan has tried to dress up yet another disappointing set of programme for international student assessment—PISA—results as representing stability and as being competitive by international standards. Kate Forbes might say, “Continuity won’t cut it,” but I say that this is not even continuity—this is disastrous for our young people and embarrassing for our nation. To fall so far behind England in education is a national emergency. We invented education. The Scots have had universal education since 1660—the English only got there in 1873.
In August 2016, at the Wester Hailes education centre in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon asked to be judged on her record in education, especially on closing the attainment gap between pupils in poor and rich postcodes. Ten years on, the results are in. Scottish pupils are now a full academic year behind their English peers in science, and Scotland has scored its worst results ever in maths and reading. Meanwhile, England scored a top 10 place in all three disciplines. That is shocking.
All the while, honest John has been ever present. As finance minister, he presided over devastating college cuts. As education minister, he marked down 75,000 working-class kids during the pandemic. Now, as First Minister, he has reduced our great tradition in education from outstanding to average—the ruination of a once-proud nation.
Can we get a question, please?
My question is this: is a free school bag the only gimmick left to this hapless First Minister?
I will tell Malcolm Offord what ruination looks like. It is people like him and Thomas Kerr going around spreading racist filth in our society. That is what ruination looks like.
I accept the outcome of the PISA assessments, but they are one part of the data set for Scottish education. The curriculum for excellence levels data, which is produced by the teachers of Scotland, whom Malcolm Offord has just insulted, shows that the proportion of secondary 3 pupils achieving third level or better in literacy or numeracy is at its highest level ever. We have the highest level of young people leaving school and going to positive destinations, at 93.5 per cent. We have record levels of young people in Scotland going to university for the first time, including record numbers of young people from deprived backgrounds, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service. At both national 5 and higher, pass rates were up compared with last year and also with the pre-pandemic situation, and the poverty-related attainment gap narrowed for national 5, higher and advanced higher.
That is the full report card on Scottish education, and I am proud of Scottish education.
So, let us talk about the attainment gap. Màiri McAllan has been fulsome in her praise of recent exam results in Scotland. However, in 2026, 49 per cent of the S4 student cohort were not even entered in national 5 maths. That compares with 41 per cent in 2019, while student numbers have grown 12 per cent in the same period. The Scottish National Party might claim success for half the pupils who sit the exams, but those figures mask a systemic failure to narrow the attainment gap for all pupils. We must narrow the attainment gap by raising the floor, not by lowering the ceiling, and the bottom line is that standards are falling in Scottish schools.
During this week’s Education and Gaelic Committee meeting, Patricia Gibson argued that it may be “impossible” to close the attainment gap, as children are starting from very different standpoints. Is that really the stark reality of the SNP’s lack of ambition? First destroy an internationally admired gold standard of education and then give up? Reform will never let Scotland’s children down with that acceptance of mediocrity.
Does the First Minister agree with Ms Gibson? Does he think that closing the attainment gap is really “impossible”? Has he given up on Scottish children?
The only person who should contemplate giving up is Malcolm Offord. If he had followed the presentation of the programme for government to Parliament last week, he would have seen at its heart the Government’s primary objective of eradicating child poverty. That is the stated aim of the Government, and that is what we are taking a variety of measures to achieve. That is why we have lower levels of child poverty in Scotland, which I suspect is contributing to some of the achievements that we are making on narrowing the attainment gap in Scottish education.
All the other policy measures that we have taken, such as expanding—more than doubling—the availability of early learning and childcare to ensure that children get the best start in life through their engagement with early learning, and the measures on book bug work for babies and families, ensuring that children and families have the opportunity to engage in literacy from the earliest possible stages, are justified by international evidence. Those are just some of the steps that the Scottish Government is taking to support families, to close the attainment gap and, most of all, to ensure that every child in our country has the best start in life. That is what children will get from an SNP Government.
North Sea Oil and Gas Licences
: Over the coming weeks, the Prime Minister is expected to travel to Aberdeen to publicly announce the licence for the Jackdaw gas field. After a summer of climate breakdown in Scotland and across the globe, that would be an act of sheer climate vandalism. We have had 72 separate wildfires in the United Kingdom, with more than 700 households evacuated. More than 1,400 people have died in Nepal and Tibet after the recent glacier collapse, with more than 5,000 still missing. Across Europe this year, more than 35,000 excess deaths have been linked to the back-to-back heatwaves.
Every licence that we grant to drill for more oil and gas in the North Sea will contribute to more wildfires, more heatwaves and more loss of life for generations to come. Will the First Minister join me in condemning the climate-wrecking behaviour of the UK Government and say no to drilling at Jackdaw and Rosebank?
The first thing that I want to say is that the Government attaches the strongest possible importance to climate action and to fulfilling our statutory obligations to achieve net zero, which is why the achievement of net zero is one of the four principal priorities of the Government’s agenda, as I set out to the Parliament last week in relation to the programme for government.
The United Kingdom Government, in considering decisions in relation to Jackdaw and Rosebank, has to make an assessment of the climate impact of those proposals. That is the legal duty. Those applications have had to be re-examined because such an assessment failed to be undertaken in the past. That assessment is absolutely fundamental, and it must be part of the decision-making process of the United Kingdom Government.
As we utilise oil and gas in the years to come, the question that the UK Government must assess is whether the development of those fields will contribute to more carbon emissions than would, as an alternative, be created through the importation of oil and gas from other jurisdictions. That is the assessment that has to be made.
In all of this, the Scottish Government is focused on ensuring that we make the transition to clean fuel. Yesterday, I was in Aberdeen to set out more grant funding to support the transition to net zero in Scotland, and that will remain the focus of the Scottish Government.
The Scottish Government used to have a clear position on this matter, with a presumption against all new licences for oil and gas fields in the North Sea. Clearly, that would have ruled out support for Jackdaw and Rosebank, but the draft energy strategy has lain in a drawer for more than three years now—it has never been published or finalised. That is despite a majority of people who responded to the consultation supporting the presumption against new licences. Polling from earlier this year shows that that is still the case.
Last week’s programme for government promises a refreshed energy strategy at some point down the line, but it also says that new licences should be treated on a case-by-case basis. People who have had their homes destroyed by wildfires and floods and people who have lost loved ones in the recent heatwaves want to know what the Government will to prevent things from getting worse. Does the First Minister think that new oil and gas fields in the North Sea will make the climate crisis better or worse?
Applications that are made within the United Kingdom’s legal framework must be considered on a case-by-case basis—there is no alternative to that. It would be unlawful for us to do anything other than that.
The Scottish Government will reinforce—as I have reinforced already today—our absolute commitment to taking climate action. That has been reinforced by the commitments that we have made in various budgets, and yesterday, in the city of Aberdeen, I announced further measures to support the utilisation of clean energy, in announcing a project at a hydrogen-related organisation. We are investing in the transition to net zero, which will be the focus of the Scottish Government’s agenda.
That represents a departure from the previous energy strategy, which included that presumption. I would be keen to know what has changed to move away from the presumption in the draft energy strategy.
The Jackdaw gas field would contribute just 2 per cent to our gas supply. Any argument that that will somehow contribute to energy security or to making our homes cheaper to heat this winter is simply wrong.
What would make a real and immediate difference would be a rapid roll-out of clean, green heating for homes in Scotland. Replacing gas boilers with electric heating and insulating buildings will make our homes warmer and cheaper to heat and will not contribute to rapid climate breakdown, as Jackdaw will.
When the Scottish Greens were in government, we published a plan to roll out clean, cheap heating to 1 million homes. Last week’s programme for government cut that plan by 90 per cent. Has the Scottish Government bought the line that Jackdaw and Rosebank will solve the crisis of high energy bills, or does it intend to take real action to ensure that every home in Scotland has clean, green and affordable heating?
The Scottish Government is taking forward all the measures that Gillian Mackay has talked about. They are all part of the steps that we are taking, whether that is through home insulation, alternative heating systems or community renewables schemes. All those are part of the Government’s programme for government, and we have been taking forward those measures for some time.
I am grateful for the support from members of the Greens for the measures that the Government takes, but those measures are integral to the programme for government that I set out to the Parliament last week. That includes, at the heart of the programme for government, one of our four priorities, which is to make the transition to net zero. Whether that should be one of the Government’s four priorities will be disputed by members across the chamber, because not everybody will agree with it. Some members in the Parliament do not think that we should make the transition to net zero and do not agree with that agenda, but that is the Scottish Government’s agenda, and I am proud to set that out to the Parliament and to the people of Scotland
Education Standards
I, too, wish Scotland’s Jewish community all the best as they celebrate Rosh Hashanah.
John Swinney says that Scottish education is “essentially stable”, but the new programme for international student assessment—PISA—results confirm that he is utterly delusional. After finishing primary school, many Scottish pupils cannot even read or write. Primary teachers are now teaching basic literacy at almost half of Glasgow’s secondary school. One of those teachers said:
“They’ve got reading ages of maybe five or six-years-old—they can’t recognise basic words”.
That comes a decade after Nicola Sturgeon said that she would put her “neck on the line” to improve literacy in deprived areas. Of all the Scottish National Party’s many failures, is trashing Scottish education the greatest of them all?
As I set out to Malcolm Offord earlier, I am proud of Scottish education. I simply say to Russell Findlay that the proportion of secondary 3 pupils achieving the third level or better in literacy and numeracy is at its highest level ever, and that is because of the investment that the Scottish Government has made in closing the attainment gap, delivering excellence and equity in Scottish education and ensuring that young people are supported to fulfil their potential. That will remain the focus of the Government’s improvement work, which was brought forward following the PISA results in 2022, to make sure that we deliver curriculum improvement to constantly strengthen the delivery of Scottish education. That is the Government’s focus.
That failed education secretary has absolutely nothing to be proud of. Here are the facts: thanks to Conservative policies, pupils in England are ranked in the top 10 in the world for reading, maths and science. The same rankings confirm that Scottish pupils’ results continue to decline. Those pupils are intelligent, ambitious and hard working, but they have been failed by the negligent, useless and complacent SNP Government—and its only answer is a free school bag.
Glasgow City Council’s executive director for education, John McGhee, said that Scotland’s success depends
“on the skills of young people leaving our schools.”
Leading education expert Professor Lindsay Paterson said that Scottish young people face
“a competitive disadvantage in the labour market.”
Why is John Swinney sabotaging the prospects of a generation of young Scots and Scotland’s future prosperity?
I do not accept the point about there being a competitive disadvantage for Scottish pupils. The data that I set out earlier shows that, when they leave school, young people in Scottish education are going into positive follow-up destinations—that is, going into education, work or training as a consequence of their education—at a rate of 93.5 per cent.
Universities and Colleges Admissions Service data shows that 97 per cent of Scots who applied to a university got a place. That does not suggest that there is a competitive disadvantage in outcomes for young people.
Russell Findlay made a comparison with the English system, which he said was attributable to the Conservative Government. Let me tell Russell Findlay what the Conservative Government also gave us. Because of his support for Liz Truss, the public finances of this country were absolutely and completely trashed. I will not take any lessons about anything from somebody who thought that having Liz Truss as Prime Minister was a good idea.
Ferry Disruption (Compensation for Businesses)
I extend the good wishes of the Scottish Liberal Democrats to Scotland’s Jewish communities on this most auspicious of holidays.
When it comes to education, we cannot ignore international assessments. Our education system used to be up there with the best in the world, but it is not any longer. If we are to confront that reality, we need the Scottish ministers to address their shortcomings and accept responsibility.
It is not only school pupils that the Government is failing. I have badgered the First Minister about businesses that have suffered endless ferry disruption, but the Scottish National Party Government has repeatedly refused to compensate coastal communities.
This week, the Parliament voted for a Scottish Liberal Democrat amendment to a motion that would have compensation head to the port towns that have suffered the most—the likes of Ardrossan, Dunoon, Mallaig, Oban and Ullapool. In the spirit of respecting the will of the Parliament, will the First Minister tell business in towns such as those exactly which of them will qualify for that compensation, how much they will get and when that money might reach them?
During the summer, I announced the implementation of a financial support scheme for communities that were affected by ferry disruption earlier in the year. That is a matter of public record and the information is available on the Government’s website.
Those communities are still suffering and are not getting access to the cash that they were promised. It is clear that the Government is all at sea when it comes to compensation—and to ferries more generally.
Yesterday, in the Parliament, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Tourism and Transport and his director of ferries were completely oblivious to a major BBC news story that said that 700kg of highly flammable gas was released into the Glen Sannox when it had 82 passengers on board. That critical safety failure was hidden for a year and was only recently exposed by journalists for all to see.
That is the latest in a long line of ferry failures. There is the Glen Rosa, which is now eight years overdue. A shipyard in Turkey has been given £20 million while our own yard in Port Glasgow is shedding a quarter of its workforce. There was an election promise for four new vessels, but there is still no contract. Now, a transport minister, at a transport committee, was clueless about a transport safety failure.
We have all heard the rumours that the First Minister gave Mr Flynn that job to set him up to fail. Did he expect it to happen so soon?
Well, it takes Alex Cole-Hamilton some time to get to the point. Let me pick apart a few of the things that he said.
First, Mr Cole-Hamilton’s comment about the absence of a compensation scheme ignored the fact that I announced the compensation scheme during the summer. All that I will say to him, in the spirit of decent parliamentary exchanges, is that he needs to pay attention to what the Government is actually doing. If he did so, he would not ask me questions about things that I have already done.
Secondly, Mr Cole-Hamilton talked about Ferguson’s yard and the Government’s intervention to safeguard employment there. When the Government intervenes in such cases, his colleague Willie Rennie criticises the Government—he criticised the Government for intervening in relation to the Dalzell steel yard the other day. I simply point out that there is a level of inconsistency from the Liberal Democrats on all these issues.
The Government is investing in the ferry fleet. Four new vessels are coming from the yard in Turkey, and the Glen Rosa is coming from Ferguson’s. The Government is investing to strengthen our ferry services. That is exactly what we will deliver.
That ends First Minister’s question time for party leaders. Members who are leaving should please do so quietly—there is too much noise in the chamber.
The rest of this Official Report will be published progressively as soon as the text is available.
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