Plenary,

Meeting date: Thursday, May 11, 2000

Official Report 644KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

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SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

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Prime Minister (Meetings)

To ask the acting First Minister when he next intends to meet the Prime Minister—there is a downside to every job—and what they intend to discuss. (S1F-308)

I shall meet the Prime Minister at the joint ministerial committee on health planned for the end of this month.

Will the acting First Minister support the Minister for Rural Affairs—as the Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning so clearly failed to do—in his excellent comments in Europe yesterday, when he said that the impact of high sterling on Scottish exporters was "unbelievable" in terms of the damage to jobs in Scotland? Does the acting First Minister agree that the failure to enter the euro is a missed opportunity and that the failure to have a strategy to enter the euro is costing thousands of jobs? Will he tell the Prime Minister to stop shilly-shallying on this issue?

I thought that the Deputy Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning gave a very robust defence of Scottish manufacturing. Unlike Mr Salmond, I have had an opportunity to talk to the Minister for Rural Affairs to find out what he said. To point out the difficulties facing Scottish manufacturers as a result of the relative strength of the pound is not particularly new or original. Yesterday, during Prime Minister's questions, the Prime Minister said:

"Let us be clear, the problem of manufacturers, particularly those selling into Europe, is the current strength of the pound."—[Official Report, House of Commons, 10 May 2000; Vol 349, c 832.]

We should pay tribute to our manufacturing exporters. Their efforts have secured an 8.4 per cent increase in exports last year. I do not deny the difficulties that they will have with tight margins if they are to win European markets. However, as Ross Finnie rightly said yesterday when he met Scottish seafood exporters to Europe at an exhibition in Brussels, a recovery of the French and German economies would give a major boost to our exporters. He also said that it would be folly to join the euro tomorrow. I know that Mr Salmond quite properly supports entry into the euro, but he is rather vague about when that should happen.

It may have been a robust defence of Scottish manufacturing, but it was not a robust defence of Ross Finnie. Ross Finnie called for a strategy to enter the euro and I want to test the acting First Minister's resolve on this issue. The instruction to the Prime Minister to stop shilly-shallying was a direct quotation from his party leader, Charles Kennedy. I know that he is in opposition in London and can speak his mind, while the acting First Minister has to mind his p's and q's—that is why he wins by-elections and the Liberal Democrats here get beaten by Hamilton Accies—but now that the acting First Minister knows that it is a direct quotation from his federal party leader, will he tell the Prime Minister to stop shilly-shallying on this issue, which is costing thousands of jobs?

If anyone is shilly-shallying on the issue it is a man who postures, yet never gives us any answers. [Interruption.]

Order. Members must listen.

Mr Salmond's party, quite properly, supports entry into the euro. The Labour party agrees, as do the Liberal Democrats. The only ones who are isolated are the Tories. It is an issue on which we are agreed in principle; the differences arise in matters of transition and timing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has set out the Government's strategy and, on Monday, my party leader set out the Liberal Democrat position. It is high time that Mr Salmond's party indicated how it proposes to address the difficult question of how we move towards entry into the euro.

At question time, the acting First Minister should answer the questions. Was the Minister for Rural Affairs right when he called for a clear strategy for entry into the euro? Does he support his party leader in calling on the Prime Minister to stop shilly-shallying on this issue? Does he understand that we want him not just to be the acting First Minister, but to act like a First Minister and speak for Scotland on this issue?

I always speak for Scotland. The Minister for Rural Affairs was right yesterday to say that it would be folly to join the euro tomorrow. I am still not sure whether Mr Salmond accepts that view. As I have said, we are developing a strategy. The Government has a strategy. On that matter, Mr Salmond is silent. We hear more about the euro from Mr Salmond than about independence, but on both issues he is vague when it comes to the details of how they will work in practice.

Will the Deputy First Minister assure me that when he next speaks to the Prime Minister he will draw his attention to the fact that yesterday, for the first time in many hundreds of years, a democratically elected Scottish Parliament discussed independence and rejected comprehensively Alex Salmond's views?

I rather suspect that the Prime Minister saw that for himself. The Parliament voted overwhelmingly yesterday to reject independence because it knows that it is a dead-end for Scotland. [Interruption.]

Order. Members are being very noisy this afternoon. They must listen to the questions and answers.

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Cabinet (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister what issues were discussed at this week's meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S1F-307)

The Cabinet discussed several matters of significance to the Executive and to the people of Scotland.

I see that the acting First Minister has learned his lines very well, because that is exactly the same answer as the First Minister normally gives when he is with us. I would have thought that the self-styled champion of freedom of information might have been a bit more expansive, but that is clearly only a skin-deep commitment.

As regards future Cabinet meetings, now that the acting First Minister is setting the agenda, can we expect law and order and justice to be given the attention they deserve and a bigger share of the public spending cake in Scotland? Mr Wallace has clearly been ignored so far at those meetings, given that the budget for his department has been cut by 10 per cent this year.

I am glad that Mr McLetchie noted that my answer was identical to that usually given by the First Minister in answer to Mr McLetchie's repetitive question. It proves that it is business as usual.

I can assure Mr McLetchie that issues of law and order are discussed by the Cabinet as and when appropriate. Indeed, there is a strong commitment in the Executive to curbing crime in Scotland, to ensure that people can live free from crime and, importantly, free from the fear of crime. When I spoke to the Scottish Police Federation last month, on a day when I announced a further £1.7 million investment in DNA testing to help our police in the important work of detection, I indicated that we would be making a further announcement, following the Cabinet's discussion of the spending priorities from the consequentials from the budget that we got. That announcement will be made in the near future.

The objectives are worthy, but the funding is not there.

If we consider one aspect of the Executive's recently published annual expenditure report—Mr Wallace's department—we see that while virtually everything else in the justice department's budget has been cut, including, for the first time in its history, funding for victim support and witness services, spending on offender services will increase by 22 per cent over three years. Is that the minister's idea of justice with Jim—more for the criminals and less for the victims?

I am sure that Mr McLetchie will have noticed that funding to the police authorities is some 3.7 per cent up—ahead of the rate of inflation. In addition, last year we gave the police forces additional money—£4.8 million, I think—to fund their millennium policing. As that money was already committed, it allowed them to recruit.

We are putting £10 million into a Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency over the next two years to tackle the important issue of drugs, which even Mr McLetchie would agree are a scourge for many of our communities.

Mr McLetchie talks about investment in offender services. I hope that he agrees that it will be very worth while for our communities affected by crime if we can ensure that fewer former prisoners reoffend.

The acting First Minister seems to be unable to understand simple arithmetic. Chapter 5 of "Investing in You" says:

"In 1999-00 the Justice budget was £589m . . . Our budget for 2000-01 is £528m".

That is a reduction of 10 per cent. The acting First Minister is not giving law and order in this country the attention and resources it deserves. Facts are chiels; he should face up to them.

The truth is that the amount of money that is going to the police authorities is up, as is the amount that we have added through the millennium funding. We have just announced new money for DNA testing, and we will announce spending priorities—as I have already indicated to the Scottish Police Federation—to allow the further recruitment of police officers in the coming weeks and months. That also means that spending on the police has increased. Anyone who examines our record will find that our deployment of money is very effective and ensures that our communities live in greater safety and free from the fear of crime.

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Lung Transplant Services

To ask the First Minister, further to the answer to question S1W-2780 by Susan Deacon on 17 December 1999, what stage consideration of lung transplant services in Scotland has reached as part of the review of cardiothoracic transplantation services in England. (S1F-313)

The national services advisory group, which advises the Scottish Executive health department, considered the issue when it met earlier this week. The department is waiting for the group's recommendations and the outcome of the review in England has not yet been published.

Bearing in mind the fact that the heart transplant unit at Glasgow royal infirmary, which was initially intended for heart and lung transplantation, has now closed, causing terrible distress to patients and relatives, will the Deputy First Minister put first and foremost the 37 patients who wait by their phones hour after hour to find out whether there is a chance of a transplant? Furthermore, will the Deputy First Minister assure those people and this Parliament that Scotland's only cardiac transplantation unit will not close permanently and that critically ill Scots will not be forced, for up to a year, to make the long journey to Newcastle?

I can confirm that the health department is considering extending the heart programme to include heart and lung transplantation. Although it is accepted that patients currently go to Newcastle for such operations, I am sure that Dorothy-Grace Elder will agree that it is essential that any development in the service should be in the patients' interest.

I can also assure Dorothy-Grace Elder that there is no intention to close the heart transplant unit in Glasgow—it is important to stress that because there is much misrepresentation abroad. Susan Deacon has made that perfectly clear, and the Scottish Executive is working closely with the health trust to put in place both short-term and long-term measures which will ensure that the interests of patients and their families are properly looked after. I repeat: there is no intention to close the unit.

As Dorothy-Grace Elder has indicated, arrangements are in hand to ensure that patients from Scotland will receive treatment in Newcastle. A cardiologist and a colleague are in Glasgow today to talk to medical staff and families. Patients from the Newcastle area and from Scotland who are treated in Newcastle will be given transplants on the basis of clinical priority. I am sure that Dorothy-Grace will agree that that is only proper.

The Deputy First Minister might be aware that Janis Hughes MSP, Cathy Peattie MSP and I last week attended a meeting with more than 300 transplant patients, who are very concerned and will be pleased with his reassurances today.

Does the minister agree that we must consider the longer term, particularly of transplant surgery, to ensure that there is some forward planning and to avoid the same situation that we have at Glasgow royal infirmary? By doing so, we could attract the best surgeons to a national transplant unit with the best conditions. If we have to reconsider the package that we offer surgeons to achieve that aim, we should do so.

I agree with much of what Pauline McNeill has said. She is right to look to the longer term. The Executive will be working with the trust on ways of resuming and enhancing the Scottish transplant service. Susan Deacon has asked North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust to produce an action plan by the end of week. The plan must outline the trust's plans for the future of the transplant service.

Pauline McNeill is also right to point out that availability of suitably qualified surgeons is a critical factor. That has been one of the restricting factors and it is important that we ensure that people who are skilled in heart transplantation are available. That matter is also being attended to.

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Joint Ministerial Committees

To ask the Deputy First Minister whether there are any plans for additional joint ministerial committees. (S1F-305)

There are no plans at present for any additional joint ministerial committees. New committees will be established as and when the shared agendas of the devolved Administrations and the UK Government require them. All the existing committees will continue to meet over the coming months.

Following the historic vote in Parliament yesterday to reject independence and divorce, does the Deputy First Minister agree that working together through joint ministerial committees is an effective way of delivering full employment, wiping out child poverty, ridding our streets of drugs and rebuilding our health service?

I agree that it is important that we co-operate with colleagues south of the border. That co-operation is going forward on key issues such as tackling poverty, the knowledge economy and health. As I said, there will be a meeting of the joint ministerial committee on health later this month.

While Parliament has the right to make decisions on a range of devolved responsibilities, people expect that many things might be achieved through partnership and co-operation between the Executive and the people of Scotland. We should foster such partnership and co-operation between the Executive and the United Kingdom Government.

On the joint ministerial committee on poverty and social inclusion, will the minister agree to make urgent representation on behalf of the people of Scotland to highlight some shameful and unacceptable statistics? After three years of a new Labour Government, the gap in income share between the bottom 20 per cent and the top 20 per cent in our society is greater that it was in 1997 after 18 years of the rich-serving Tory Government. Will Mr Wallace condemn the fact that, under new Labour, the rich continue to get richer, while the poor continue to get poorer?

I assure Mr Sheridan that in that joint ministerial committee a strong commitment to tackling poverty and social exclusion will be asserted. There is much to be done and nobody is being in any way complacent. We recognise that, which is why the Executive has set out milestones and targets that it aims to achieve. Those include, for example, the abolition of child poverty within this generation. The targets to which we are committed are noble, but we recognise that they must be achieved in partnership with the UK Government. That is why we want to forge that partnership—to ensure genuine success.

At that or any other joint ministerial committee will Mr Wallace raise the issue of the Liberal party's central policy of federalism? Can he enlighten the chamber as to which powers Parliament would acquire under federalism that it does not have now?

I do not think that federalism falls readily into the agenda of any of the three joint ministerial committees—[Interruption.]

Order.

If Mr Wilson wants to know for the record, federalism is still a policy of Scottish Liberal Democrats and, indeed, of the Liberal Democrat party. That is a matter of public record. However, I must say that yesterday we examined the policy of the SNP and it was found wanting—Parliament's vote indicated how much.

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Members of the Scottish Parliament

To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Executive has had with Her Majesty's Government on any proposed reduction in the number of members of the Scottish Parliament. (S1F-311)

Before I answer his question, may I congratulate Lord James on winning speech of the year. With his wide knowledge of the ways of the Scottish Parliament, he will know that the Scottish Executive is in regular contact with the UK Government on a wide range of issues.

Is the Deputy First Minister aware that when the issue came up in the House of Commons on 11 November 1998, he voted against reducing the number of members in the Scottish Parliament, while Mr Henry McLeish, Mr Sam Galbraith and Mr John Home Robertson voted for reducing the number of MSPs? Since both views cannot prevail, will the Deputy First Minister kindly tell us which view will be endorsed by the coalition: the view of Mr Henry McLeish or the view of the Deputy First Minister?

Frankly, Sir David, I am rather disappointed with the Conservative researchers. Lord James seems to think that that was the first time that the issue came up in the House of Commons. His researchers will find that I was on the record arguing the case many times before that. It is a matter of public record. We lost the amendment.

Perhaps Lord James was in the House of Lords on 17 November when Lord Sewel said:

"if the parliament took the view that its workings would be seriously undermined by a reduction in numbers—then it is open to the parliament to make representations to the Government of the day and to this Parliament . . . The Government are a listening government and are prepared to enter into discussion and debate and to formulate policies on the basis of experience. The opportunity would not be lost, at some time in the future—on the basis of practice—to reopen this question on the initiative of the parliament."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 November 1998; Vol 594, c 1195.]

The door is open. It is a matter that the Parliament will want to consider in years to come, but any reduction is unlikely to happen before 2007 at the earliest.

Does the Deputy First Minister agree that, if Lord James and his party had won the general election in 1997, there would be no devolution, no Scottish Parliament, no MSPs and, most certainly, no Tory MSPs?

I am asked to contemplate a number of things, but a Tory victory in 1997 is not one of them.

Will the acting First Minister confirm that when he was merely the leader of his own party as opposed to the acting leader of somebody else's he made much of the fact that the figure of 129 MSPs is the minimum number required to achieve proportionality in the Parliament, something that should be dear to his heart, if not to the hearts of Labour members?

As I indicated earlier, my views on this matter, which was debated regularly in the House of Commons, are on the record. As I also indicated, the view of Her Majesty's Government of the day—the same Government that we have today—was that if the Parliament took the view that its workings would be undermined by a reduction, it was prepared to listen to representations at the appropriate time.

Does the Deputy First Minister accept that constituencies as big as my own or John Farquhar Munro's present problems in themselves, and that any enlargement would cause a major upset and something of a democratic deficit for constituents in the north?

If Mr Stone reads the remarks that I made in the House of Commons, he will probably see that that was one of the examples I gave. We also secured separate representation in this Parliament for Orkney and Shetland, which is enshrined in the Scotland Act 1998 for Westminster as well.

That concludes question time. Before we move to the next item of business, I inform members that we shall meet in Glasgow next week. I understand that there are leaflets at the doors to help them find the place. [Laughter.] I mean the place of the meeting, not Glasgow.