First Minister’s Question Time
Engagements
1. To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-01052)
Later today, I will be meeting the Orkney-based company, Scotrenewables Tidal Power Ltd, which I am delighted to announce has finalised details for an international investment package of more than £7 million in the company that will allow it to finance the design, construction, installation and testing of its new generation tidal turbine. I know that the whole chamber will wish to welcome that substantial vote of confidence in Scotland’s offshore renewable industry.
I thank the First Minister for that reply.
Last week, The Scotsman reported that the European Commission had written a letter making it clear that an independent Scotland would have to apply to the European Union to be a member. Nicola Sturgeon’s spokesperson accused the paper of “fabricating” the story. Indeed, the First Minister said that it had been “duped by anti-independence people”. The paper was even forced to print a partial apology. We now know that the story is true.
A fortnight ago, I asked the First Minister when he last complained to a newspaper about its coverage and he answered me with an email today at 11.19. Does he now need to update that answer, and would he now like to apologise to The Scotsman? [Interruption.]
Order.
I am sure that The Scotsman corrected its story because it implied that a letter had been sent when the Commission said that no such letter had been sent. That was the position. [Interruption.]
Order.
A more interesting point might be how The Scotsman got sight of a letter by the President of the European Commission that had not been sent. No doubt we will be enlightened in the columns of The Scotsman newspaper as to how it arrived at that conclusion.
I am sorry that Johann Lamont does not appreciate my trying to answer her questions. I will try not to write to her and explain when the last time that I complained to a newspaper was. If I remember correctly, The Herald published a correction. I think that it is a good idea to publish corrections when mistakes are made. No doubt at some point Johann Lamont will apologise and publish corrections for the many factual errors that she makes in the chamber.
I have been in this job nearly a year and I have worked out that the First Minister does not intend to answer questions very often at all.
To just keep saying something does not make it true. On the letter, the problem for the First Minister is that his defence seemed to be that it was not sent. We all know that it has now been sent and he has to deal with what that letter says.
In 2007, Nicola Sturgeon told this Parliament that
“Scotland would automatically be a member of the European Union upon independence. There is legal opinion to back that up.” —[Official Report, European and External Relations Committee, 11 December 2007; c 231.]
Not only do we now know that to be untrue, but it transpires that Nicola Sturgeon had not even asked for the legal advice that allowed her to make that assertion.
Of course, that ministerial habit of assertion is viral. On Tuesday, John Swinney told the House of Lords that he had been having a “very helpful dialogue” with the Bank of England on keeping the pound after independence. What does the bank say? It says:
“We have not entered a dialogue”.
What does—[Interruption.]
Order.
What does it say about the Scottish Government when the people of Scotland have to go to the European Commission and the Bank of England to hear the truth?
There were perhaps three points in that question.
First, the letter had not been sent last week. That much is clear. Therefore, to suggest that it had been sent was clearly wrong.
Secondly, Johann Lamont says that there is no legal opinion that supports the Scottish National Party position on continuing membership of the EU. Ample legal opinion from a range of sources has been cited. Emile Noël, the former secretary general of the European Commission, Lord Mackenzie-Stuart—[Interruption.]
Order.
A range of reports have been brought to this chamber.
Incidentally, I see that, in his blog last night, Aidan O’Neill QC says that that is a respectable argument, so there is plenty of legal opinion that supports that position.
Lastly—[Interruption.]
Order.
Lastly, on Johann Lamont’s point about the Bank of England, she has come along to this chamber on a number of occasions—I remember one specifically, on 31 May—and told me that there have not been discussions with the Bank of England. I rather helpfully—because the Bank of England had asked for confidence in these matters, and I respect that—pointed out that I had met the governor of the Bank of England on 16 February. I told Johann Lamont that in May.
The SNP Government has pointed out—and I quote exactly—that
“As indicated by Mr Swinney, the Scottish Government has engaged with the Bank of England to discuss factual and technical matters around proposals for a macroeconomic framework.”
That is exactly what has happened.
The Bank of England does not—clearly—take a position on the question of independence for Scotland; that is not its job. However, it has responded, as it should as a public body, to a request for factual information, and it has engaged with a fiscal commission that—I remind the Labour Party—contains eminent economists, including two Nobel laureates. In terms of preparing—[Interruption.] To get a Nobel laureate in economics is an important thing that should not be derided by the Labour Party.
Those preparations are made—[Interruption.]
Order.
The SNP Government engages with those who are willing to engage in discussions. We have engaged in requesting factual information from the Bank of England, and we are prepared to engage with the President of the European Commission, as the Deputy First Minister has made clear. We would engage with the United Kingdom Government to discuss these matters, but department after department has refused to engage in such discussions.
Perhaps Johann Lamont will help us by—just for a change—disagreeing with her Tory allies and suggesting that the United Kingdom Government now engages in the discussions that this Government is perfectly prepared to enter into.
I suppose that, in the fantasy world that the First Minister now inhabits, that is meant to be a stout defence of his position.
The First Minister’s problem is that he claims that he wants to have dialogue with all those people, yet he asserted that we would be in Europe and be part of a sterling zone without ever asking anybody and without ever having a conversation. When Mr Swinney goes to London, he says that we are having a dialogue, but the Bank of England says not—[Interruption.]
Order.
I am not sure if they are suggesting that the Bank of England is being misleading; perhaps we can clarify that later.
I go back to the interview in which the First Minister said that he had sought legal advice from the law officers when he had not. Members will remember that Andrew Neil did not ask the First Minister just about that. Andrew Neil asked him:
“Can we clarify whether an independent Scotland would have to reapply for membership of the EU?”
Alex Salmond said:
“Well, no we wouldn’t.”
However, we must bear in mind that that was the same interview in which the First Minister’s words “Yes, we have”, meant “No, we haven’t”—
“in terms of the debate.”
The man in charge of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has told the BBC:
“if there is a new state, of course, that state has to apply for membership”.
What part of that statement does the First Minister not understand?
I will try to remember the start of that question; I think that it started on the question of the Bank of England.
The Bank of England, as is perfectly proper, has agreed to engage with the Scottish Government on technical advice for the fiscal commission. That is a perfectly proper thing for the Bank of England to do. It does not take a public position on the debate on Scottish independence, it has no reason to take such a public position, and one would not expect it to take such a public position.
The governor of the Bank of England has been perfectly proper in providing the resource for the technical advice that has been requested by the fiscal commission, and the Bank of England will engage with the commission once it is established. That seems to be a perfectly reasonable position for the Bank of England to take, and I hope that that will now extend to UK Government departments so that they take a similar wise position.
The Scottish National Party Government has never argued that we do not have to negotiate our position in terms of the European Union. I remember answering a question from Patricia Ferguson on 25 January in which she said, on the publication of our consultation document in January, that we had changed our position to say that there would be negotiations. I pointed out to her on 25 January that:
“I say that it has never been our position that there would not be negotiations; the point is that negotiations would be held from within the context of the EU.”—[Official Report, 25 January 2012; c 5613-14.]
It was with some surprise that I saw a press release from Patricia Ferguson last Friday that repeated the suggestion that to say that there would be negotiations was a change in the Government’s position. We have maintained that there will be negotiations on the question of Scotland’s position within the European Union. The point is that we have said—and it is absolutely unambiguously the case—that those negotiations will take place from within the context of the European Union. That is exactly the position. [Interruption.]
Order.
I could quote a variety of Labour MPs and MEPs who accept that Scotland would not be excluded from the European Union. No serious person actually believes that to be the case. It is not the case, of course, because it is not just in the interests of Scotland to be a member of the European Union but overwhelmingly in the interests of the European Union to have Scotland as a member.
The First Minister really has to reflect that the President of the European Commission may have some authority in this matter, on balance. [Interruption.]
Order.
Mr Barroso has said that a new state would have to apply. I had thought that the aspiration of SNP back benchers and, indeed, front benchers was for Scotland to be a new state; otherwise, what is the point of what we are going to be debating for the next two years?
I do not want to dwell on private grief, but I would say this to the First Minister: does he not realise that he has a bit of a credibility problem when he comes to the Parliament and gives an answer that he describes as
“as exact an answer as anybody has given in any Parliament”—[Official Report, 15 November 2012; c 13513.]
and a few hours later has to admit that he was entirely wrong? Does he not see that when he says he has sought legal advice when he has not, people doubt the next words that come out of his mouth? When the finance secretary says that he is in dialogue with the Bank of England and the bank says that that is not so, what does that say about the First Minister’s Government? Is it not the truth that John Swinney, Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond—all of them—are not leading Scotland but misleading Scotland?
As I explained at our meeting, the bank is committed to impartiality in that debate.
“We will, of course, respond to requests from the UK and Scottish governments for technical advice but on the condition that such advice is provided in strict confidence. The Bank will have no public position in the debate. Consistent with that, the Bank will engage with the Fiscal Commission that you have established.”
That is from a letter from the governor of the Bank of England on 19 March this year, and it is exactly consistent with the position that the Scottish Government has put forward. I would have thought that when I suggested to Johann Lamont, without in any way breaching the governor’s confidentiality request, that I had met the governor in February of this year, she might have come to the conclusion that the engagement that the governor speaks about was going on—that was the purpose of it.
It is entirely reasonable for the Scottish Government to seek to engage with important authorities in terms of preparing the ground for the independence referendum and in particular next autumn’s white paper. It is not unreasonable for the Labour Party, which traditionally had the occasional difference with the Conservative Party, to say that it would be a good idea for UK Government departments to make preparations. Why is that not an unreasonable position? Because the Scottish Affairs Committee, which is Labour Party dominated, suggested that the Ministry of Defence should do exactly that.
The point is that we are perfectly prepared to engage, perfectly prepared to prepare the ground for the white paper and perfectly prepared to rebut the scaremongering of the Labour Party on each and every occasion. We stand on the ground that the country that has 90 per cent of the oil reserves of the European Union and 25 per cent of its potential renewable energy reserves, which is the second-largest gas provider in the European Union and which has 60 per cent of the territorial waters of these islands, is one that no serious person across this continent would try to exclude from the European Union.
Prime Minister (Meetings)
2. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister. (S4F-01051)
I have no plans to do so in the near future.
I, too, listened with interest to the performance of the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth at the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, particularly when he said that the Scottish Government had held informal dialogue with the European Commission about an independent Scotland’s entry into the European Union.
The Scottish Conservatives revealed earlier this year that both the EU’s enlargement commissioner, Štefan Füle, and President Barroso had confirmed in writing that, by March, there had been no discussions on this subject with the SNP Government.
Can the First Minister tell the people of Scotland what talks John Swinney was referring to? When—since March—did they take place? Who conducted them and at what level? What ground was covered? If we were to contact Europe, would we get the same answers that he is about to give?
Scottish Government ministers meet European commissioners on a regular basis and informal dialogue takes place with them across a range of subjects. We meet at official level as well.
I say to Ruth Davidson that few, if any, people who I have met across the world over the past few months have not asked me about the question of Scottish independence. Scotland is attracting a huge amount of interest in international terms. I know that that is not the favoured position of the Conservative Party. It would like to be in a position where nobody was interested in Scotland, or it would like to put forward a position that nobody should be interested in Scotland. [Interruption.]
Order.
Scotland is a subject of great interest, and Scottish Government ministers will talk in informal terms with the European commissioners and anyone else in explaining why Scotland should be an independent country.
Can I gently remind the First Minister that he is here to give straight answers to straight questions and that the people of Scotland deserve honest answers?
The First Minister cannot, will not or seems unwilling to tell us something as straightforward as precisely what discussions have been going on, if indeed there have been any. This all just adds to quite an unedifying week in which first the First Minister and then the finance secretary were spanked and sent to bed by President Barroso and the Bank of England for not doing their homework properly. [Interruption.]
Order.
Now, in a panic, the head girl, Nicola Sturgeon, has been dispatched to Brussels to sort this mess out.
I ask the First Minister whether Brussels shares his sense of urgency. Can he tell us who has agreed to meet the Deputy First Minister, when these meetings are due to take place and what questions she is due to ask?
It has not been unknown for politicians in these islands to have disagreements with the president of the European Commission. At Prime Minister’s question time yesterday, David Cameron said that he did not agree with President Barroso. That seemed to me to be a perfectly reasonable statement. The only problem was that, when he was disagreeing with President Barroso, he was agreeing with Bill Cash.
Does Ruth Davidson not understand that Conservative politicians have been disagreeing with President Barroso for most of the past two years? The reason is that a substantial section of the Conservative Party wants to leave the European Union now and another substantial section of it wants to have negotiations. We are told that the Prime Minister will be announcing an in-out referendum after these negotiations. Apparently, he is going to do that next month—but then of course he said that he was going to do it last January, if I remember correctly.
Should we not therefore come to the conclusion that the only substantial threat to Scotland’s position as a European Union nation is from the Conservative Party that has an undying hostility to anything European and which is preparing—a substantial section of it—for Scotland’s exit from the European Union? If that is the feeling within Ruth Davidson’s party, I can tell her that the amount of influence that she has over the London direction of the Conservative Party is next to zero. It ill behoves a representative of a Eurosceptical party to come to the chamber and cast questions on Scotland’s credentials as a European nation.
Cabinet (Meetings)
3. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S4F-01053)
Issues of importance to the people of Scotland.
As the Government has finally admitted that it will need to negotiate Scotland’s membership of the European Union, can the First Minister tell me whether the voters will know before the referendum what we could lose in those negotiations?
What voters in Scotland lose is having Liberals propping up the Conservative Party in Government.
I was not expecting that rather comprehensive answer.
The First Minister does not seem to understand that this is about not membership but the terms, and I am surprised that he does not seem to understand that very simple point. This is about the politics of other countries, and the First Minister seems to think that all 27 members of the European Union will just sign up to whatever he wants.
Now that, whether the First Minister likes it or not, people doubt what he says, they want to know before the referendum what they might lose. Can he therefore tell me when he plans to meet the other 27 members of the European Union to discuss Scotland’s membership and to establish what they will want in return?
I think that, in contrast to the previous two party leaders, Willie Rennie has actually put his finger on something important. He is not questioning the fact that Scotland will be a member of the European Union but is taking the debate on to the negotiations.
I have already pointed out to the Labour Party the answer that I gave to Patricia Ferguson earlier this year, but I also remind Willie Rennie that when he has talked about terms in the past he has actually stated that Scotland could be forced to adopt the euro. That is one of the key aspects—[Interruption.] Well, I have a number of quotes—
I am not disagreeing.
The member says that he was not disagreeing. He was shaking his head, but he was not disagreeing.
He’s a Liberal.
Order.
It has been pointed out that the member is a Liberal Democrat. It must have been the Democrat part that time.
I have tried to point out that under the circumstances that we envisage of Scotland’s continuing membership we will of course inherit the opt-out position. However, even if that were not the case, it does not follow at all that we would be forced into the euro.
If Willie Rennie wants an explanation of that, I suggest that he look at The Scotsman, which has been quoted so extensively by Johann Lamont, and the article by Daniel Kenealy from the politics and international relations department of the University of Edinburgh. Dr Kenealy goes through the whole range of European debate but makes one point that is virtually beyond argument. I will quote him exactly:
“one opt-out must be discussed here briefly and that is the euro opt-out. The euro is a genuine example of scaremongering within this debate. The notion that Scotland could be forced or compelled to adopt the euro is simply untrue.”
It ill behoves the politician in this chamber who was most in favour of the euro just a few years ago—[Interruption.]
Order.
When Willie Rennie became chief executive of the Scottish Liberal party just a few years ago, he said that Scotland would be leading the yes campaign for the euro. The yes campaign that is going to take place is the yes campaign for an independent Scotland, and for a Liberal Democrat to scaremonger over the euro not only defies the past record of that party but reduces the debate to a level worthy of a party that has five members.
If Willie Rennie will accept that his words are scaremongering—which is what he is doing by suggesting that Scotland could be forced into the euro—we can perhaps get the debate on to a level that I know the Liberal Democrats would really like to see.
Employment
4. To ask the First Minister what impact the Scottish Government expects the additional capital resources announced in the autumn statement to have on Scottish employment. (S4F-01062)
Through the recent autumn statement announcement, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has finally heeded the calls of the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Executive to boost capital spending. That comes after four years of pressure, 15 calls on two United Kingdom Governments, eight letters to the chancellor and two joint declarations with the devolved Administrations in this year alone—a substantial degree of engagement.
The steps that have been taken are welcome, but they take us only halfway towards commonsense in terms of investment and there is still the lack of a coherent plan in London to return the economy to growth. The additional capital funding of £394 million in total over three years is expected to boost jobs and growth in Scotland. For example, the additional £160 million will support 2,000 jobs in that year. I am sure that Kenneth Gibson understands that that is only a partial return to the capital spending levels that were expected historically.
Does the First Minister agree that the belated Treasury decision to heed Scottish Government calls to reverse capital spending cuts could and should have come much sooner? That would have made yesterday’s positive news on unemployment—which Opposition party leaders have today ignored—even better. How many more people who are currently unemployed in Scotland could be in work if the UK Government restored its full 26 per cent cut to our capital budget that it continues to impose on the Scottish Parliament?
It is true that I try to anticipate the questions that might be asked at First Minister’s questions. One iron law is that if unemployment in Scotland is falling, it will not be mentioned by any of the Opposition parties.
Kenneth Gibson is absolutely right. The savage cuts in the capital budget have been a major reason for weakness in the economy. We are delighted and pleased that there has been a partial resumption of a capital spending profile. It is only half of what we believe is needed over the next year, and it only returns us to a 25 per cent real-terms reduction. However, if the Conservative Party and its Liberal Democrat allies in London now agree that direct capital investment is essential for economic growth, perhaps they will realise that, having taken the first faltering steps, more should follow so that economic growth in this country can resume.
Fiscal Control and Financial Regulation
5. To ask the First Minister, in light of reported comments by the chair of the independent fiscal commission, Sir Crawford Beveridge, what the Scottish Government’s position is on fiscal control and financial regulation in the event of Scotland separating from the rest of the United Kingdom. (S4F-01069)
Any system that is put in place takes logical precautions against the problems of excessive indebtedness, poor fiscal controls and lax regulations that cause many of the problems that the global economy now faces. It is therefore clear that we should not make the same mistakes as the previous UK Government, with the ill-fated promise to end boom and bust that ended with the greatest recession since the 1930s. Under independence, control over the key economic and fiscal levers would be brought home to Scotland, providing opportunities to boost growth and to tackle inequality. We are, as is now I think generally agreed, in a stronger relative fiscal position than the UK to the tune of £2.7 billion according to the latest official statistics. The fiscal commission working group, to which I referred earlier, will publish its first set of findings and recommendations in the new year. I look forward to seeing that output.
Will the First Minister clarify one point? Will an independent Scotland’s future be supported by a fiscal stability pact?
I also ask the First Minister to clarify two quotes. One is from an interview that he had with Andrew Neil in March 2012, in which Mr Salmond said that a prerequisite for a functioning sterling area would be a fiscal stability pact. He followed that up in September 2012, in a lecture in Chicago, when he answered a question by saying that there would be no need for a “fiscal stabilisation pact”. Which is his preferred option?
I said no such thing in Chicago. I pointed out that, if we look at the Government expenditure and revenue Scotland figures and have a borrowing limit arrangement with the Bank of England and the Treasury in that year, we would be £2.7 billion relatively better off than the UK fiscal position—the Institute of Fiscal Studies has confirmed that point in recent weeks.
That £2.7 billion seems to me to give a degree of flexibility that the United Kingdom does not have at present. It would mean that we could borrow less, spend more, and save for the future, or any combination of the three.
I will bring it down to everyday levels for everyone’s benefit: £2.7 billion is approximately £500 a head for every man, woman and child in Scotland. Lots of people who look at the economic disaster that has been visited on this country by the Labour Party and is being carried on by the Conservative Party, and at the levels of poverty and deprivation in Scotland, and at the lack of growth in the economy, will say that some part of that £2.7 billion should be invested in the economy. They will also be wondering why Ken Macintosh seems to think that this country uniquely should not have the benefit of its own resources.
Drugs (Legalisation)
6. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is on the legalisation of drugs given the potential impact on its justice and health policies. (S4F-01056)
In terms of the drugs debate, two things are important. One is to recognise the huge and serious problem that Scotland has faced and still faces to an extraordinary degree. However, it is also important to recognise that the recent statistics show some signs of improvement.
Self-reported drug use among the general adult population has fallen since 2006, from 12.6 to 9.1 per cent—that is for 16 to 59-year-olds reporting in last year’s Scottish crime and justice survey. Drug taking among young people is at its lowest level since 2002—that is among 15-year-olds reporting drug use in the last month, in the Scottish schools adolescent lifestyle and substance use survey.
Therefore, we should take an overall approach to tackling drug use in Scotland, as set out in the national drugs strategy, “The Road to Recovery: A New Approach to Tackling Scotland’s Drug Problem”, which focuses on prevention, enforcement, treatment and recovery. I commend that approach to the chamber. We should see those early signs of success not as a reason to be complacent, but as a reason to continue to pursue that approach, with the support of the chamber.
I welcome the fall in addiction, but it remains a substantial source of social problems. In relation to enforcement, does the First Minister see merit, as I do, in the idea of commissioning research into the potential impact of decriminalising drug usage? I stress that I am talking about decriminalising, not legalising.
We should always consider information, analyses and evidence and see what is justified.
The position that we have taken is, I think, the right one and I think that we should pursue it. Of course we should consider evidence, and that is what we will do. However, our current position and trajectory have the substantial advantage that they command cross-party support across the chamber. I believe that that is the course that we should continue to pursue, concentrating on the points that are set out in the road to recovery programme and recognising the indications of some success, as well as accepting the overweening nature of the drugs problem in Scotland.
If we consider Scotland’s relationship with alcohol, and the measures that we have had to take and must pursue to address that imbalance, the fact that alcohol is a legal substance does not mean that we are removed from the extraordinary problems that are associated with the abuse of that substance. Christine Grahame should beware of seeing in a change of the law a solution to these matters.
We will consider the evidence, but I believe that the balance of the evidence suggests that the approach that we are currently taking is the right one.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sure that none of us wants to drag the First Minister back here at the end of the day to correct himself, so I offer him an opportunity to do so here and now.
In response to my question earlier, the First Minister did not say whether he supported a fiscal stability pact or otherwise, but he specifically said that my quote was incorrect, saying that he said no such thing in Chicago. The full quote from Mr Salmond reads:
“I don’t believe that a monetary policy restriction would have to have a fiscal stabilisation pact. I think we can have plenty of room for manoeuvre within a currency union.”
Those words are as quoted by Tom Gordon in the Sunday Herald on 30 September.
Through your offices, Presiding Officer, I ask whether the First Minister made such a statement.
Mr Macintosh well knows that that is a matter not for me, but for the First Minister.
That concludes First Minister’s question time.
12:34
Meeting suspended.
13:44
On resuming—