Engagements
To ask the Deputy First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of this glorious day. (S4F-02862)
The First Minister is in the United States on Government business and has asked me to answer questions on her behalf.
Later today I will travel to Glenrothes to chair a further meeting of the Tullis Russell task force.
A worrying report published today confirms that two thirds of North Sea operators have been forced to cancel projects because of the recent fall in the oil price. That is bad news for the industry, for the economy of the north-east and for thousands of oil workers and their families. They need to know what the future holds for Scotland’s oil and gas industry. Can the Deputy First Minister confirm when an updated oil and gas bulletin will be published?
I can confirm that. The Government is considering the implications of the United Kingdom Government’s budget back in March, which contained substantial changes to the taxation arrangements for the North Sea oil and gas sector. Once we have confirmed the extent of those changes and their implications, which will flow through into, we hope, investment decisions made by companies, given that there has been such radical change in the taxation regime for the North Sea, the Government will publish the next version of the oil and gas tax bulletin.
I did not hear a date there. The Scottish National Party Government has had time to do the work, but there has been one excuse after another. That is the fourth time that somebody in the Deputy First Minister’s seat has refused to do that. Once upon a time, we could not move for SNP oil bulletins. Since the collapse in the oil price, we have had nothing but radio silence. That may be because the collapse in the oil price has demolished the SNP’s economic credibility. We now know that the SNP seeks to amend the Scotland Bill to push for full fiscal autonomy within the UK, something that right-wing Tory back benchers will cheer, because it means the end of the Barnett formula.
Can the Deputy First Minister tell us what the oil price would need to be to balance the books under full fiscal autonomy?
The Government publishes an annual oil and gas bulletin reflecting the changes to the North Sea oil and gas tax arrangements. The UK Government made very substantial changes to the taxation regime back in March. We want to see the implications of that in the oil and gas sector. That is necessary, because there is every opportunity for companies to change their investment decisions, as the UK Government has accepted that it got the taxation regime so badly wrong in 2011 that it has now changed those arrangements.
When it comes to the issue of full fiscal autonomy, Kezia Dugdale should learn a lesson from the fact that she went on and on about full fiscal autonomy for nine months, all the way up to the general election, and the Labour Party delivered its worst performance in this country in 90 years, with a haemorrhage of its vote and the loss of 40 of its 41 seats. That tells me that Kezia Dugdale is out of touch with public opinion in Scotland.
The Office for Budget Responsibility published a full fiscal analysis within 24 hours. We have not seen one from the Scottish Government in over a year. We got tired of waiting for the Government to do a fiscal analysis, so we have published our own. [Laughter.]
Order.
I hear cries of “Mickey Mouse” and “It’s not credible.” Members should listen, because this document has been verified by the Scottish Parliament information centre and independent experts. This is the oil paper that the SNP Government will not print.
The Deputy First Minister did not answer my question, so let me give him the answer. We would need a global oil price of $200 to balance Scotland’s books under the SNP’s plans for full fiscal autonomy. So disastrous is the SNP’s policy that it is predicated on an oil price that has never been reached before. That number has been approved by SPICe. SNP members can laugh all they like, but it is the reality of the situation.
A Labour amendment to the Scotland Bill would establish an independent expert commission to consider the impact of full fiscal autonomy on Scotland’s public finances. It would not have any politicians or Government employees as members. The Scottish people would then have, once and for all, a full expert analysis of the impact of full fiscal autonomy. Can the Deputy First Minister tell us whether the Scottish National Party will back that amendment?
It would be interesting to see what degree of discussion there has been between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party about taking forward that amendment, because that is just what I saw on Monday when I was in the House of Commons—the continuation of the better together alliance between the Labour Party and the Tories over the Scotland Bill. I would have thought that the Labour Party might have learned a lesson from its participation in the better together alliance, which has been described as a disaster for the electoral performance of the Labour Party in Scotland.
If Kezia Dugdale is interested in taking forward a rational and considered discussion about full fiscal autonomy, she need only look at her back benches. In the Devolution (Further Powers) Committee’s debate in the chamber, Alex Rowley said:
“The Scottish Government has put a stronger case, and has a case, for full fiscal autonomy.”
His next sentence is where the problem arises for the Labour Party. He said:
“I am keen to move away from the politics of fear and have that discussion.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2015; c 76.]
What the Labour Party does when it comes here, week in, week out, is peddle the politics of fear. That did not work in the general election and it will not work now.
In all that anger and posturing, I think that the answer was no. This is a finance secretary who is afraid of the verdict of impartial economists and is running scared of the consequences of his own policy. What are those consequences? Some £7.6 billion of cuts over and above what the Tories are offering. Why? Because the truth of full fiscal autonomy is known by his colleagues in Westminster. The SNP’s constitution spokesperson said that it would be “a disaster” and the new SNP MP for Midlothian described it as “economic suicide.”
This is less about North Sea oil and more about the SNP’s snake oil. The Deputy First Minister is trying to punt us something that he knows to be dodgy. For the sake of Scotland’s schools and hospitals, should the Deputy First Minister not just abandon this disastrous plan for full fiscal autonomy?
It is interesting, listening to Kezia Dugdale’s question, that she uses language that falls into the category that her leadership rival, Kenneth Macintosh, identified when he talked about the negativity of the Labour Party defining itself against the Scottish National Party. [Interruption.]
Mr Henry.
That approach has been tried month after month, and it has not worked for the Labour Party.
Fiscal autonomy is about building on the powers of this Parliament—powers that, over the past 16 years, have seen an improvement in Scotland’s economic performance that has taken our gross domestic product from sixth in the United Kingdom to third, behind London and the south-east, and an increase in productivity from 96 per cent of UK levels in 1999 to being in line with UK levels in 2012.
The moral of the story is that, where we can exercise distinctive economic policies in Scotland, we can transform the economic performance of our country. For me, that is what fiscal autonomy is all about. It is about enabling this Parliament to take the decisions that are right for Scotland, not to be at the mercy of a Tory chancellor who comes along one Thursday and takes £100 million out of our budget without a by your leave. I want this Parliament to decide our own economic future, and the Labour Party should see the opportunity of that for the people of our country.
Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)
To ask the Deputy First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S4F-02860)
I met the Secretary of State for Scotland on Monday, and we speak by telephone on a weekly basis.
We know that standards of literacy and numeracy in our primary schools are falling. Even the First Minister said that she was frustrated that we do not have as much data for our primaries as we do for our secondary schools. Clearly that has to change.
This week, one of our leading literacy experts, Professor Sue Ellis, told the Parliament that having a national bank of surveys and tests that schools can use as they see fit is
“one of the most useful things that you can do.”—[Official Report, Education and Culture Committee, 9 June 2015; c 21.]
Scotland does not have those kinds of tests right now. We should have them, along with national testing, so that parents and policy makers have a far clearer picture of how pupils are progressing at every stage of their education. Does the Deputy First Minister agree?
Where I agree with Ruth Davidson is on the point that the First Minister made in response to her on 21 May: there is not sufficient nationally held information on the performance of school pupils in the primary sector and there is a need to improve the availability of that information.
The information exists child by child and is the subject of discussion in the interaction between parents and teachers about the performance of individual children, which we would all expect and which takes place in schools the length and breadth of our country. The information is absolutely essential to satisfy parents that children are progressing satisfactorily through the education system.
Where there is a weakness is that that information is not collated and collected nationally. That is the area that the Government is currently exploring, and we will consider carefully Dr Ellis’s input to the process.
The Deputy First Minister is right that I raised this issue in May. The reason why I am raising this issue again is that we need a clear direction from the Scottish Government, and at the moment we are simply not getting that.
First, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning used a speech to publicly praise international education systems that employ rigorous testing and said that for Scotland
“nothing is off the table”.
The First Minister told me on 21 May that she wants more data on what is happening in our primary schools, and she did not rule out further testing. Then, this weekend the leader of Scotland’s largest teaching union revealed that he had been given “a categorical assurance” from the education secretary that such testing would not happen.
It seems that this Government is saying one thing to policy makers, another thing to Parliament and something different entirely to the teaching unions of this country. I appreciate that the First Minister is not here to give her answer, so I ask the Deputy First Minister: what is the Scottish Government’s actual position on primary school testing?
Back on 13 May, in her answer to Cameron Buchanan’s question, Angela Constance said:
“the Government’s position is not to reintroduce things such as national testing, which is onerous for teaching staff and children, we need to address the need for more intelligent use of information.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2015; c 4.]
On 21 May, the First Minister said:
“I am not, though, simply going to give Ruth Davidson a yes or no answer”—
which means that Ruth Davidson overstated the First Minister’s position when she put her question to me—
“or jump to making decisions before we have properly considered what the right thing to do is. We need a new national performance framework, but we must ensure that the data that we are collecting and the way in which we are collecting it are right, proportionate and sensible.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2015; c 16-17.]
At the weekend, Larry Flanagan said in The Herald that the Government wants
“to look at what data is in the system and use it more effectively and they want to look at the role of different assessment and we have no difficulty with that.”
What is happening is that the Government is doing what the public would expect us to do, which is to discuss the issue with a range of stakeholders and take their opinions to help establish that new national performance framework.
In answer to Ruth Davidson I say that the Government is developing that new performance framework and we will share information with Parliament once that process is completed. Ruth Davidson and the parents of Scotland should be assured about this Government’s absolute determination to work with our education system, parents, pupils and stakeholders, to improve educational performance and attainment in Scotland. That lies at the heart of the Government’s agenda.
Murdo Fraser has a constituency question.
The Deputy First Minister will be aware from media reports that Tayside doctors have claimed that the health board has manipulated waiting times figures by barring surgical teams from seeing patients, potentially putting them at risk. I know that the Scottish Government has asked the chief medical officer to investigate, but will the Deputy First Minister assure us, given the seriousness of those claims and the potential threat to patient safety, that the CMO’s findings will be made public at the earliest opportunity?
I can assure Mr Fraser that any findings or relevant information will be made public at the earliest opportunity, because we believe that it is essential that the public are reassured about the effectiveness of clinical services.
Mr Fraser stated that there was allegedly a ban on clinicians and specialist surgeons entering the Ninewells accident and emergency department. Yesterday, on five separate occasions, specialist surgeons attended to patients at the Ninewells A and E department, as is normal practice on a regular basis.
Murdo Fraser also raised the issue of patient safety, and that is central to the debate because it essentially determines the effectiveness of clinical services. Ninewells hospital was required—as are all hospitals in Scotland—to improve its performance on patient safety against the hospital standardised mortality ratio by 20 per cent by December 2015. Not only has Ninewells hospital achieved that level of improvement early; it has achieved a 22.1 per cent improvement against the hospital standardised mortality ratio. Patient safety in that hospital is improving faster than in other hospitals in the country.
Notwithstanding what the chief medical officer considers on behalf of the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport, this issue matters to members of the public—indeed, it matters to me as an elected representative of the people of Perthshire who regularly use Ninewells hospital. My family has used that hospital and received excellent clinical care. We must consider the issues and be reassured by that hospital’s effectiveness in improving patient safety.
The Deputy First Minister will be aware that the Arches venue in Glasgow city centre in my constituency has gone into administration, with the potential loss of 130 jobs. Aside from the fact that the Arches is one of Glasgow’s most cultural venues, this is obviously a worrying time for staff who may be facing redundancy. Will the Deputy First Minister assure those affected that the Scottish Government will offer all the support it can?
I understand the significance of the point that Sandra White has raised on behalf of the Arches in her constituency. Creative Scotland is working hard with that organisation and other partners to explore options on the future of arts programming of that nature in Glasgow.
Creative Scotland agreed with Glasgow Life and Glasgow City Council to bring forward some of this year’s support for the Arches—£92,000 from Creative Scotland and £37,000 from the council—to assist with the delivery of its current arts programme in the short term. I reassure Sandra White that we will look in all ways we can at how to assist in safeguarding the future of a significant cultural venue in the city of Glasgow that contributes a great deal to the cultural life of Scotland.
Cabinet (Meetings)
To ask the Deputy First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S4F-02857)
The Cabinet will discuss issues of importance to the people of Scotland.
Over the past few years, John Swinney has repeatedly told us that the time for full financial powers is now and that the need is urgent, so will he explain what his MP Tommy Sheppard meant when he said that full fiscal autonomy would be a “disaster” and a “silly thing to do”? Does Mr Swinney know?
Tommy Sheppard was explaining the approach that the Government set out in its manifesto, in which we made it clear that the delivery of full fiscal responsibility would have to take place over time—[Interruption.] I do not see why that should be a particular revelation to Parliament. The Calman powers were published in a command paper in 2010, and only in spring next year will we see the devolution of income tax powers.
That was the point that Mr Sheppard made. The Government has set out on repeated occasions the importance that we attach to acquiring the economic powers in Scotland that will enable us to strengthen our country’s performance, create new opportunities and open up possibilities for the people of our country.
So the need is no longer urgent.
On full fiscal autonomy, the Scottish National Party—to be frank—has been all over the place: it was in the manifesto, then out, then back in again, and now, the SNP’s MPs say, “Let somebody else decide.” That started as the hokey cokey and has ended as pass the parcel, which is no wonder, given the £7.6 billion price tag. Should the Deputy First Minister not just admit that his full fiscal autonomy plans are a disaster and would be a silly thing to do?
The one thing that we could say about the Scottish Liberal parliamentary group in the House of Commons is that it could not play pass the parcel because it does not have enough members. There are barely enough Liberal MSPs—they are not even all here today—to play pass the parcel.
Mr Rennie asked about the commitment by the Government and the Scottish National Party to full fiscal autonomy. The First Minister made it clear during the election campaign that we would table amendments to the Scotland Bill to enact full fiscal autonomy; I made that clear on 31 May on the “Politics Scotland” programme; and I heard with my own ears Angus Robertson make that clear in the House of Commons on Monday.
The question is: do the Liberal Democrats have any interest whatsoever in equipping this Parliament with the powers to strengthen Scotland’s economic performance and deliver new economic opportunities to the people of Scotland? Are the Liberal Democrats prepared, just as they were for the past five years, to resign themselves to decisions taken by Tory ministers who axed our budget and reduced public spending in Scotland? I want economic control to rest here so that we can decide the future of our country.
Budget Revisions (United Kingdom)
To ask the First Minister what the impact of the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s in-year budget revisions will be on Scotland. (S4F-02865)
The Scottish Government’s budget will be reduced by £107 million as a result of the chancellor’s announcement last Thursday. The Government believes that to be utterly unacceptable. Not only has this Parliament already set its budget, but this country voted in the clearest possible terms against further austerity. Despite that, just a week or two after David Cameron promised to govern with respect, the United Kingdom Government is reducing budgets yet again. I met the chancellor on Monday to put forward an alternative that encouraged him to use the flexibility that is at his disposal, and I hope that every party in the chamber will join us in calling on him to do exactly that.
I know that the First Minister wrote to ask party leaders to join the Scottish Government in condemning the chancellor’s approach. Have party leaders responded? In light of the upcoming July budget from the chancellor, does the Deputy First Minister expect the chancellor to take a different approach to consulting the Parliament and the Scottish Government before making decisions at the dispatch box?
To the best of my knowledge, we have not received any replies to the First Minister’s letters, which were issued on Friday.
Mark McDonald’s other point related to the forthcoming United Kingdom budget in July. The Scottish Government set out to the chancellor on Monday an approach that he could take that is within the fiscal mandate that he legislated for in the previous UK Parliament, which would enable him over the next five years to invest about £93 billion more in public expenditure and public services than is the subject of the UK Government’s current plans. We will advance that argument and discuss it with the chancellor at any opportunity that we have, and we had the opportunity on Monday to do that.
Of course, the Scottish Government believes that the correct approach at this stage in the economic recovery is to invest in public services and public spending. We argued for an increase of 0.5 per cent in real terms in public spending over the course of this UK parliamentary term, and we encourage the chancellor to consider that.
I advise the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy that we have not yet received the First Minister’s letter but that we will respond to it when we do.
We share the Scottish Government’s concerns about in-year budget revisions. The Deputy First Minister has a number of options to consider. He has already said that he might raise taxes. Could he tell us by what level? Is he also considering using the new borrowing powers that were devolved to Scotland in April this year?
I would have thought that my opposite number in the Labour Party would know that I already committed to using the borrowing powers that we acquired in April to their full extent for this current financial year, to the tune of £304 million. That is a piece of elementary information that a reading of the budget document would have supplied, so I am a bit surprised that Jackie Baillie has raised it with me.
On the second point about taxation, in the spring of next year we will, as Jackie Baillie knows, acquire the Calman income tax powers for the Scottish rate of income tax. However, if we wish to change one tax rate, the powers oblige us to change each of the three tax rates in unison. For example, if we wanted to increase the top rate of income tax, we would have to increase the basic rate of income tax and the higher rate of income tax into the bargain. That was what the Calman process delivered.
The Calman proposal has not even been implemented before it has been unpicked because it is unsatisfactory. I will consider all the taxation decisions that I have to make and will make them in good time in the budget process and, in the normal fashion, I will advise Parliament accordingly.
Personal and Social Care (Payment Arrears)
To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government will take following reports that more than 14,000 people facing bills for personal and social care are in arrears. (S4F-02878)
Local authorities set charges for social care, and they have a duty to ensure that the charges that they make are fair and affordable. Where people are in genuine hardship, local authorities are able to take into account individual circumstances and to waive or reduce charges.
The Government is supporting implementation of the integration of health and social care around the country with investment of more than £500 million over three years. We have also increased the local government finance settlement to more than £10.85 billion for 2015-16.
We have already ensured that people who are in the last six months of a terminal illness do not pay for the care that they receive at home, and we are currently working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to improve the fairness and consistency of the system of charging for social care.
I thank the Deputy First Minister for his answer, and I hope that he shares my concern that thousands of people in Scotland’s disabled and elderly community are falling into debt because of social care charging.
The Deputy First Minister mentioned on-going talks with COSLA on trying to tackle Scotland’s care tax. Those talks have been going on not for weeks or months, but for years, and to no avail. I believe that last year the disability organisations walked out of those talks in frustration.
Will the Deputy First Minister take a new tack? My colleague Siobhan McMahon is about to launch a consultation on a member’s bill to abolish the care tax in Scotland. Will the Deputy First Minister reach out across the chamber to other parties and work with us to abolish the tax on Scotland’s disabled community?
I certainly can say to Mr Macintosh that the Government will engage carefully with the proposals that Siobhan McMahon brings forward, and that ministers will be happy to discuss with her how they can be progressed.
There are, of course, a range of complexities around the care charging regime, which varies from area to area, with different positions being taken by different local authorities. There are standards that the Government requires be implemented, and we have enacted some changes in that respect, which I set out in my earlier answer to Mr Macintosh.
The Government will continue discussions with the relevant interested organisations to ensure that the concerns that have been legitimately raised are properly addressed.
Colleges (No Compulsory Redundancy Policy)
To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government met its 2011 pledge that there would be no compulsory redundancies in colleges throughout the college merger process. (S4F-02861)
In 2011, the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Michael Russell, made clear our wish that colleges avoid compulsory redundancies. Ministers have since done all that is in their power to encourage colleges to follow that lead, in particular at the outset of the college reform programme, when the then Minister for Skills and Lifelong Learning wrote to all college principals to encourage them to adopt a policy of no compulsory redundancies for staff. The then cabinet secretary for education, in guidance to the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council, repeated the expectation that colleges would avoid compulsory redundancies.
I thank the Deputy First Minister for that answer, but the fact of the matter is that the Scottish National Party should never have made a pledge over which it had no legislative control, and following which it has conveniently shifted the blame for compulsory redundancies to college principals. However, the SNP does have legislative control over spending on college places, so I ask again: why has it allowed college places to fall by a third since 2008, with clearly more cuts to come, as was evidenced by the news about Fife College this week?
We have been round this territory before in relation to college places—[Interruption.]
Order.
The Government committed to maintaining 116,000 full-time equivalent college places. We know from the data that not only has that figure been maintained but that we have delivered 119,000 FTE places in the college sector.
I take this opportunity to thank those in the college sector who have dealt with a process of reform that I accept has been challenging, but which has delivered more FTE places for the college students of our country. That has given those individuals greater ability to enter the labour market because their skills will be at a more sophisticated and more effective level. That is what our economy needs—people with deep skills who can contribute to the economy. The college reforms have delivered exactly that.
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