Motion of No Confidence
Good morning. Our first item of business today is a debate on motion S1M-1621—a motion of no confidence—in the name of Bruce Crawford, and an amendment to that motion.
I state unequivocally that the SNP has no beef with a minister who is intent on producing savings in her budget, provided that she does so for the good of Scotland. Nor do we have any beef with a minister who can deliver a transport bill in the confines of the limited powers that are available to her. The Minister for Transport has done her best as she sees it for the good of Scotland.
However, the SNP believes that, in the case of the trunk road tendering process, there is substantial and solid evidence that the minister has failed seriously to discharge her ministerial responsibilities to a satisfactory standard. In other words, we believe that the decisions that she took did not serve Scotland well. In particular, she failed to ensure that, as part of Government policy, proper cognisance was taken of or proper weight was given to the requirement for an integrated and best-value approach to how the services are to be delivered across the public sector. That is a key issue in Scottish transport. The Government was meant to deliver on it, but the minister has failed to do so.
In addition, the minister is culpable because she was warned repeatedly about the dangers. During the initial consultation in 1999, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, many local authorities and others warned of the dire consequences of the Government's proposals. They warned that the process was too narrowly focused on the monetary cost to the Executive and that it was based on the old compulsory competitive tendering regime rather than on the principles of best value.
When—on what day and at what time—did the member first raise that issue with the minister?
I raised it as leader of Perth and Kinross Council way back when I was involved in the process. I have been involved in it all along.
The back benchers have a job to do today: they must decide either to stick up for their constituents or to stick up for the minister.
Fatally, the trunk road proposals ignored the fact that, if trunk road maintenance were to be completely separated from local road maintenance, the economies of scale and efficiencies from the integrated use of depots and plant would be lost.
On a point of order.
Can I just get on, please?
Mr Crawford, there is a point of order.
Presiding Officer, will you rule on whether it is in order for a member to claim in the chamber that he said something when he cannot substantiate that claim in debate?
As I have said many times, the content of speeches and answers is not a matter for points of order.
The minister knows all the things that I have outlined. She also knows that she failed to publish the outcomes of the consultation. Why did she fail to publish the outcomes of a consultation that was meant to be open? After all, even the Tories managed to do that in 1995.
The warnings of a public policy disaster were loud and clear from the beginning, but the minister chose not to listen; instead, she stumbled into a catalogue of errors over the tendering process. The result is the immediate threat to between 400 and 500 jobs, with 3,500 jobs potentially under threat as the loss of economies of scale begins to bite across local government. The council tax payer will be left to pick up the tab for redundancy costs and the loss of surplus income from the contracts.
The minister also failed to heed the many warnings about the quantities detailed for materials. Those figures were seriously flawed. In many cases, the base quantities differed from historical actuals by as much as 60 per cent. Incredibly, the Executive posted out the base quantities information, which was to be used in its assessment model, only after the deadline for the submission of tenders. That was far too late to allow tenderers to use it to inform their bids.
Those are the reasons why Scottish councils took the extraordinary step of going to court to challenge a decision of a Government that most of them support. It is important to note that, unlike the minister's media spin, the courts were sympathetic to the views of the local authorities. Lord Macfadyen found that the local authority consortia had established a prima facie case and that existing tenderers, who had used accurate historical information, were disadvantaged because of the grossly overstated quantities.
What was the impact of those serious errors on the bidding process? For the north-west unit, Highland Council said:
"We estimate that the overall effect of the revision of the quantities used would have the effect of slicing a staggering £70 million from our tender assessment."
The south-west unit estimates a reduction of £60 million, the north-east estimates one of £21 million and the south-east estimates one of £20 million. As the minister knows, the bids could have been reduced by those sums if the quantities had been properly stated. If the process not been flawed, the bids of the existing consortia could have been reduced by £174 million over the five-year life of the contract.
Contrast that with the minister's hollow boasts in her press release of 23 January, when she said that she would save £75 million over five years in comparison to the existing arrangements, and with her constant plea that the decision would save money. It could not be clearer: if she had heeded the advice of the majority in this Parliament, she could have saved an additional £90 million over and above what she claimed was achievable.
What has the minister done, having got things so wrong? She has not taken steps to put them right; instead, she has compounded the errors by announcing an independent review, which is nothing of the sort. The so-called independent review has been undertaken by PricewaterhouseCoopers, a company that was a major part of the minister's performance audit group for the tender assessment panel and was substantially and materially involved in interviewing the organisations that had submitted bids. The review was not independent; it was—and was always intended to be—an internal whitewash.
There has been a genuine independent review, however—the one carried out by Trett Consulting for the Clyde Solway Consortium. That report's conclusion is very damaging to the minister's case. It states:
"This is undoubtedly the most onerous contract we have ever reviewed. The Scottish Executive have endeavoured to abdicate all responsibility . . . The contract virtually decrees a master and serf relationship and in our opinion is an affront to fair and reasonable contract drafting."
The process has been an affront to justice and fairness and an affront to the Parliament. The actions of the minister have been an affront to the position that she holds. In view of the evidence that is stacked against any claim that the process was fair or just, it is reasonable to ask what was driving the minister. What was her motivation? Was it that, come hell or high water, she was determined to reach her budget targets, regardless of who got in the way and regardless of the dangerous impact that that would have on jobs and public safety? This was a minister driven by fear to misjudgments and errors in an effort to reach her targets. If she had referred the matter to the Transport and the Environment Committee, she might have saved even more money and many people's jobs.
Those who vote against the SNP motion will show that they have confidence in the way in which this whole sorry mess has been handled. They will show that they believe that public safety will be best served, that the minister has gained best value for the taxpayer and that 3,500 jobs were not worth saving. The Parliament should support the motion. The buck should stop with the minister. The case could not be clearer.
I move,
That the Parliament has no confidence in the Minister for Transport on account of her handling of the trunk road management and maintenance tendering process.
We must congratulate Bruce Crawford on at least managing to unite the Executive on this issue.
Three weeks ago, the SNP did the Parliament a considerable favour by allocating some of its time to a debate on the trunk road maintenance and management tendering process, which is an important issue that had not been ventilated in Parliament or its committees. We were correct to discuss such an important policy switch. Today, however, the SNP has not done Parliament a service—by introducing a no confidence motion, it has, in effect, prejudged the matter.
The Conservatives have two essential concerns about the process, the first of which is the way in which the evaluation was carried out. That matter has been internally re-evaluated; the minister has invited the Auditor General to review the process and the Transport and the Environment Committee has intimated its intention to investigate the contracting procedure. If Bruce Crawford's concerns are vindicated by either or both of those investigations and if damning judgment is passed on the process, questions will quite rightly be asked about the minister's handling of the affair. However, I am afraid that, by bringing the matter forward at this stage—so prejudging the evidence and taking one side without allowing for the possibility that the analysis might be wrong—SNP members have been opportunistic.
The Conservatives have no difficulty with the principle of tendering; our reservations have centred on the process and the initial risk transfer, which is an issue that has never been assessed, discussed or evaluated. However, those matters—along with the evaluation process—will be investigated and we are happy to await the outcomes of those investigations.
I do not understand why the SNP's motion attacks the Minister for Transport. The policy is not the minister's, it is the Executive's. In debating the matter, the minister has been consistent and honest—within her lights—in her handling of the matter. The SNP's personal attack on her is misplaced. If SNP members need a target, it should not be the tendering process or even the evaluation, which still await assessment; they should concentrate instead on the way in which the matter was slid past the Parliament in the roads debate three weeks ago. That was a rather sticky day for the Executive, and it was not Sarah Boyack who said at question time that afternoon that she would ensure that
"members' concerns are listened to and that everything humanly possible is done to address them."
It was not Sarah Boyack who regretted
"the rancour, mistrust and concerns that were expressed"
or who said:
"I cannot be specific, but I am sure that Bruce Crawford hears what I am saying and understands that I want to discuss the matter further."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 657.]
Those were the First Minister's words and, if the SNP is unhappy with anyone, it should be unhappy with the organ-grinder, not the monkey.
The First Minister made those statements and then failed to deliver any substantive response to his commitments. All that happened was that, a week later, after the internal investigation, the contracts were awarded. None of the other issues was addressed or discussed and no further response was made to COSLA or the local authorities. If members are unhappy with the situation, their target should be the First Minister.
Of course, the First Minister's words were not accidental. Although words sometimes stumble out, I think that those words were carefully judged on the afternoon of the difficult discussions over the potential Sutherland U-turn. On that occasion, those words were meant to buy the silence of the lambs. Anyone who had followed the local press in certain parts of Scotland could have been forgiven for believing that the Liberal Democrats were leading the assault against the Executive initiative. Mr Iain Smith even said that he was going to press for a six-month delay; however, no one seems to have told him how to lodge a motion in the Parliament, as such a motion did not appear for debate. The First Minister's response to the debate three weeks ago was an attempt to finesse the situation on a difficult day.
No one has addressed our remaining concern about the impact of the decision on the local authorities in relation to operational efficiency and value for money across the networks. That issue remains to be addressed; it was not good enough for the Minister for Transport to say in question time a fortnight ago that any diseconomies of scale for the local authorities have been compensated for by the additional resources that they received earlier this year. That capital allocation was announced to make the point that the Executive was funding road maintenance for councils; it is not reasonable to use that money to pay for increased revenue costs, much less redundancy costs. Any costs to the local authorities must be met from public funds. If they are not, the local roads service will suffer grievously, particularly in rural areas, which have seen their control over the standards of winter maintenance and their influence over substantial resources slide away.
There are substantial issues for the Parliament to investigate. When it has done so and received answers, we might purposefully and usefully debate no confidence motions. Until that time, such motions are of little value and command little respect.
I move amendment S1M-1621.1, to leave out from "has no confidence" to end and insert:
"supports the principle of competitive tendering in relation to public works contracts such as the contract for trunk roads management and maintenance, in view of the paramount importance of securing best value for the taxpayer at both local and national level; notes the concerns raised in relation to the award of the trunk roads contracts and the intention of the Transport and the Environment Committee to investigate relevant aspects of the process; endorses the Minister for Transport's invitation to the Auditor General for Scotland to review the tendering process and the evaluation in this case, and calls upon the Scottish Executive to clarify how the client and monitoring functions will be exercised under the new contracts and to review and report further to the Parliament on the implications of disaggregation of trunk and local services for local authorities."
I congratulate Bruce Crawford on his total incompetence. He has succeeded both in uniting Labour back benchers and in defining the Parliament's dividing lines. The pettiness of the nationalists has been ranged against the benefits of working within the Parliament; our principles have been set against their opportunism; and the real world that we live in has been opposed by the fantasy world in which the nationalists live.
I want the real Bruce Crawford to come on down. At the merest smell of blood, the same person who talked about cross-party consensus lodges this pathetic motion, which does nothing for road workers in Scotland. Indeed, it does nothing at all. He is not chasing political ambulances; he is chasing council gritters, and I have no confidence in him.
That is enough of the new SNP transport spokesperson. What about Kenny MacAskill, who is a fond sight to many of us? From autorant to autobank, he talked about spending money all over Scotland. However, he soon went over his credit limit and the nationalists took away his portfolio as transport spokesperson. As a result, we can have no confidence in his judgment either.
As for confidence in the judgment of MSPs, representatives of COSLA were in the visitors gallery two weeks ago when John Swinney rose at First Minister's question time. The ball was at his feet, but he kicked it over the bar and out of the stadium. Where was his concern about road workers? Did he care about them then, and does he care about them now? I think not, yet later we will see his crocodile tears. He is the Johnny-come-lately on this issue; his response has been rather pathetic and I have no confidence in him either.
Mr Kerr has just stated that he has no confidence in Bruce Crawford's judgment. I take him back to the roads debate three weeks ago when he said:
"I have absolutely no confidence in Sarah Boyack's judgment on the matter."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 579.]
Will Mr Kerr address that point now?
I am astonished that the SNP has chosen to raise that point. My debate with the minister is about trunk roads. I have thrown everything at her on this issue, including the kitchen sink, and she still does not agree with my position. That is what the Parliament is about. The Parliament will investigate the matter through its committees, not through the pathetic and petty motion that the SNP has lodged. If we cannot disagree on issues without lodging motions of no confidence, what is the Parliament all about?
Where were the nationalists 14 months ago when I was debating these issues with ministers? I say bluntly that I do not believe Bruce Crawford's comments about when he was leader of Perth and Kinross Council, because the issues were not the same then. Again, the SNP does not care about jobs and services. Although I passionately believe in retendering the exercise, I think that it will not happen.
As convener of the Transport and the Environment Committee, I have sat through many meetings with Sarah Boyack discussing the many issues in her wide portfolio. She understands the issues and I have great confidence in her ability. For example, when she was the Minister for Transport and the Environment, she introduced the ministerial action team for sustainable development. She delivered a free travel scheme for the blind and visually impaired and committed the Executive to free off-peak travel for pensioners and people with disabilities. Furthermore, she delivered a 45 per cent increase in the budget for transport over the next three years. We should compare that with the nationalists' pathetic response. More parochially, she has delivered the M74, which has proved to be of great value to my community, even though the nationalists opposed it. I have confidence in Sarah Boyack.
However, like the people of Scotland, I do not have any confidence in the nationalists. The debate is about principles and values; I have retained those values and will pursue those principles. I have fought for a level playing field for local authorities for 15 years, which is something to consider beside the unprincipled stance of the nationalists.
I cannot and will not support the motion. Focusing on one issue in an attempt to undermine a ministerial portfolio is unacceptable to me and my colleagues; one nationalist swallow does not make a nationalist summer. The issue of trunk roads is, and will remain, a matter of principle for me.
On the other hand, the nationalists have no principles. I am angry and disappointed that Bruce Crawford has chosen to abuse the issue of trunk roads for narrow political advantage. It was not right of him to have lodged the motion; however, it is right that I stand up to defend the minister. I share her many values and principles and I will defend her achievements and my party's achievements. I urge members to vote against the motion.
I have to follow Andy Kerr. He said—
On a point of order.
I hope that you are not raising a point of order about my selection of members to speak.
I thought that it was normal to take a speech from a member of each party first.
No. I must balance the debate, and I am taking the balance for and against the motion.
On a point of order. [Interruption.]
Order. Let me hear the point of order.
With respect, Presiding Officer, as you do not know what I am going to say, how can you make a judgment on it? It is normal—
Order. There is no point of order concerning the selection of members who are called to speak. You will be called if you bide your time.
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
Let us return to the issue at hand, which is the minister and her competence in the handling of the trunk roads maintenance contracts. She prejudged the issue and signed the contracts against the will of Parliament, which was expressed in the chamber three weeks ago when member after member rose to tell her to take her time, to wait for the committee's report and not to go ahead with the flawed process.
Andy Kerr said that there was only one issue over which he took issue with the minister. However, we must consider the minister's record not only on trunk roads, but on her general overseeing of the brief. There was the issue of the problems with Caledonian MacBrayne. We are sadly considering a seatrack rather than a Railtrack. She has considered bundling routes and she is reported to have visited Brussels on more than one occasion. Was any of that necessary? Could not the minister have sat down and worked things out properly in the first place?
There was the issue of the northern ferries contract. At the last minute, the minister had to come to Parliament—
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Will you please ask Fiona McLeod to address the motion? None of the issues that she is raising is in the motion.
The member is addressing the motion.
Other members accept the fact that I am addressing the competence of the minister.
At the last minute, the minister had to make an emergency statement to Parliament on the northern ferries contract. Even after that, we still lost the contract to a Finnish yard.
I remind Fiona McLeod of the text of the motion:
"That the Parliament has no confidence in the Minister for Transport on account of her handling of the trunk road management and maintenance tendering process."
There is no mention of CalMac or any of the other issues that she has raised so far. I ask her to address the motion, which the SNP should have got right in the first place.
I do not intend to repeat continually that I am addressing the competence of the minister. The minister is already costing an extra £400,000 a year in public funds that are being used to support a Finnish yard rather than a Scottish yard.
We are talking about lifeline services, not the life of a minister. We are talking about the winter maintenance of our roads and the chaos that will result from the minister's actions—chaos that is already apparent. We have received reports that the contractors are asking local coal merchants and hauliers whether they will be able to help them to fulfil their part of the contract. We will have blocked roads this winter and a jigsaw of access because, although some roads will be cleared by the councils, trunk roads will not be cleared by the private contractors.
Will Fiona McLeod give way?
No, I will not. I am closing.
The minister came to the Parliament with ideas about and commitment to an integrated transport policy. In this instance, she has failed in her brief and has failed the Parliament. It is time for her to go.
Many more members want to speak than can be fitted into the time that is available. The shorter that members' speeches are, the more members will be able to participate. I call Iain Smith, to be followed by Kenny Gibson. [Applause.]
I am pleased to have a fan club.
The motion is a blatant exercise in political opportunism by the SNP. It has absolutely nothing to do with ensuring adequate public service on our roads, either this winter or in future; it is simply about taking a party political opportunity. That is all that the SNP knows. It is a disgrace that the motion is being debated and I agree entirely with Murray Tosh that the SNP lodged it simply for cheap political purposes.
Bruce Crawford completely failed to answer the question about when he started to raise concerns on the trunk roads tendering process. The SNP did not raise concerns early. There was nothing different in what Bruce Crawford said today from what he said in a previous debate and nothing to justify the motion of no confidence. He talked about an independent review; the Transport and the Environment Committee will carry out an independent review. Surely that is the appropriate course of action. The Parliament should be able to investigate properly the awarding of the contracts.
Will Iain Smith give way?
No. I have only a short time and I will not take any interventions.
The fact that the SNP has lodged the motion is as much an affront to the Transport and the Environment Committee as it is an affront to the Parliament.
I cannot support Murray Tosh's amendment because I do not believe that competitive tendering is the only way in which to ensure best value. Competitive tendering is a way of judging best value, but it is not necessarily the only way.
Will Iain Smith give way?
I am sorry, but I do not have time.
The lowest bid is not always the best and competitive tendering is only one of the vehicles that can be used by the Executive and local government in judging best value.
Several matters remain to be addressed. I hope that the Transport and the Environment Committee will carefully examine the issues surrounding the awarding of the contracts—the consultation process, the reasons for packaging the contracts as they were packaged, and the way in which the tenders were issued and evaluated. We must get to the bottom of all those important issues. We must also judge whether best value will be achieved for the public purse. That is the fundamental issue, and I am sure that the committee will investigate it.
Will Iain Smith give way?
I am sorry, but I do not have time.
I hope that the First Minister will address those important issues when he sums up the debate.
We all accept that there will be serious implications for local government following the awarding of the contracts—no one is denying that. I have raised the issue with the minister, as did my colleague Jamie Stone as far back as October—unlike SNP members, we have been raising the issue for some time. We are aware of the concerns over winter maintenance and we must be reassured that local authorities will be able to continue to provide a service for our local roads to ensure public safety.
Local government must be able to spend the same money on the local road network and provide the same level of service as at present. If local government incurs additional costs—there is serious concern that there will be additional overheads to meet and that the economies of scale will be lost through not having the trunk roads contracts—that must be addressed. I ask the First Minister to assure us that the Executive will listen carefully and sympathetically to any case that local government puts on that issue.
In this debate and in Kenny Gibson's comments about COSLA that appeared in today's newspapers, we have seen not only that the SNP is not fit to govern, but that it is not fit even to be in opposition.
What a load of waffling mince we have just heard from the Liberal Democrats, who are so concerned about this issue that only a third of their group have bothered to show up. Moreover, what can we say of the massed ranks of the Labour back benchers who have been dragooned into showing up today but who were not present in any numbers three weeks ago when the minister was getting a pounding from all parts of the chamber?
One or two members seem to be getting their knickers in a twist about the SNP even bringing this issue to the chamber today. We do so not out of spite or vindictiveness towards the minister, whom many of us like a great deal, or out of a desire to score, in the words of the immortal Iain Smith, "cheap political" points. We bring the issue to the chamber today because the minister has gone against the will of Parliament on the trunk roads issue to the detriment of the public sector and the public purse. Indeed, Donald Gorrie—who, I understand, is a colleague of Iain Smith—said in the previous debate:
"Although we do not want crises, votes of no confidence and so on, it is not acceptable for a minister to ignore the majority opinion of the Parliament."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 593.]
Touché. However, it is clear that when a minister cocks a snook at Parliament, we have little option but to move a motion of no confidence, otherwise ministers could be forgiven for doing whatever they liked and thinking that they could get away with it.
Will the member give way?
Sit down.
Our party has nothing to gain from this issue. Parliament will gain. If the motion is successful, new Labour will select a replacement from its own ranks who not only might be more effective but, as important, will not be able to ignore the will of the chamber on issues that deeply affect the lives of many thousands of people across Scotland.
The fact is that, on the issue of trunk road contracts, the minister chose to accept the advice of a small group of civil servants rather than that of local authorities, unions and fellow parliamentarians of all colours. Pleas calling for a delay so that the issue could be reviewed fell on deaf ears. Details have emerged showing not only that the process was flawed, but that the costs in terms of job losses, damage to local authority direct labour organisations and the waste of public money will be, as Bruce Crawford suggested, colossal.
On 25 January, ministers stayed away from the chamber in an act of outright political cowardice. Of the 22 members of the Executive, the only one who bothered to show up during the 90-minute debate to give Sarah Boyack an element of support was Rhona Brankin. Today, however, the ministers are in the chamber to ride shotgun over those Labour members who dared to criticise the minister and who now, suitably chastised, jump to her defence.
Will the member give way?
No. I am going to quote again the words of Mr Kerr for the benefit of those who did not hear them the first time. He said:
"I have absolutely no confidence in Sarah Boyack's judgment on the matter."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 579.]
Today, Mr Kerr said that he had no confidence in Bruce Crawford. Who will Mr Kerr have no confidence in next month? The man who criticised the SNP for not being supportive of the Scottish Parliament is a man who does not even believe in devolution to the Scottish Parliament and who said to me and four of my colleagues that he was in the Scottish Parliament only to stop a devolutionist getting elected and that he had more in common with the Tories than he would ever have with Scotland's party. Andy has had his bum skelped over his comments of January 25—I hope only metaphorically—and we know that he has been told exactly what to say today.
The minister is under fire on other issues as well. This Monday, the headline of the Evening Times read: "Boyack Gets Bridge Message Wrong". The story said that
"drivers were misled over the lifting of restrictions on the Kingston Bridge."
There has also been criticism from Glasgow City Council and others over delays in the construction of the vital M74 northern extension and of the minister's continued tinkering with the plans. Before the accession of the new First Minister, the minister also had responsibility for the environment. Her brief was halved, which indicates that the First Minister must have had concerns about her abilities.
Regrettably, the minister listens not to Parliament, colleagues, councils or unions. It is time to replace her with someone who will.
I begin by agreeing with Kenny Gibson that, after his speech, the SNP will get no political advantage from today's debate.
Many things can be said about the motion, but the first thing that should be said is that it is not so much poorly timed as it is pathetically timed. Unlike Kenny Gibson, I do not wear knickers and therefore mine cannot be in a twist. However, I described the motion as I did because we still await the report of the Auditor General on the tendering process from the issuing of the consultation document in the spring of 1999 until the disastrous decision to privatise the services only a few weeks ago.
Will the member give way?
Sit down.
We also still await the conclusions of the Transport and the Environment Committee, which is investigating the tendering process. Until we see those two reports, the Parliament can take no definitive position on the decisions that were made.
Will the member give way?
Sit down. Fiona McLeod is not an experienced politician; I want to speak about somebody who is.
Any experienced politician or parliamentarian would understand the simple point that I have just made. I note that the SNP's most experienced and able politician, Alex Salmond, is not here for this important debate for the SNP. It is the party's first motion of no confidence. He has absented himself because he understands—even if the rest of the official Opposition does not—that it is impossible to get Parliament to take a definitive position until parliamentary committees have reported back on the facts of a situation.
Many of us believe that the tendering process was flawed, that it distorted the bids and that it put the public sector bids at a serious disadvantage. We also believe that the process put price before quality, to say nothing of the fact that it led to the bizarre situation of a Labour-led Executive privatising services out from under Labour-led local authorities. We recognise that those are serious charges that will need to be substantiated by hard evidence—that is generally accepted by all sides of the chamber. That will require attention to highly technical detail, which will have to be supplied by expert witnesses who understand that technical detail. That can be done only through the committee process of the Scottish Parliament or by the Auditor General. When that has happened, we can carefully sift the evidence and come to a conclusion. Until that is completed, it is precipitous for the Parliament to jump to conclusions or to be asked to act as a Parliament before having the hard facts before it.
I must say that, if the Auditor General reports that the tendering process was flawed and that the Executive failed to act responsibly either through incompetence or arrogance, and if the Transport and the Environment Committee reports similarly, the Scottish Parliament will find itself in a different position. It will be required to hold the Executive to account for its failures and it will expect ministers to understand that the road to Cabinet preferment is not a one-way street. The Parliament will want ministers to understand that there will be times when they will be expected—as a matter of decency, honour and responsibility—to do the decent thing and go, if they are found to be at fault.
The motion that we are debating comes nowhere near those high parliamentary standards. In its rush to judgment, it asks the Parliament to act without the full facts being in the public domain.
Will the member give way on that point?
Mr McAllion has one minute left.
I have no time to give way.
The motion also targets the resignation of a single minister for a collective Cabinet decision. Even if that resignation were achieved, it would change nothing. It would save no public sector jobs and leave the contracts in the hands of the private sector. The motion leaves the official Opposition looking like so many political hyenas, trying to pick off a person whom they perceive to be the weakest member of the Cabinet in an underhand attempt to secure some political advantage.
I do not quarrel with the SNP about trying to achieve political advantage on the eve of a general election, but I do not understand its naivety in believing that the rest of us will co-operate with its aim. My concern remains with my constituents who work for Tayside Contracts and who tell me that between 40 and 100 jobs might be lost, that seven of the 11 manned depots might be closed and that 60 of their vehicles might be declared surplus to requirements. That will threaten some of the vehicle maintenance depots, thereby threatening more jobs.
Close, please.
If there is the slenderest hope of turning that decision around and saving those jobs in my constituency, I will cling to it. I look to the Auditor General and the Transport and the Environment Committee to move us forward. I do not look to the official Opposition, which has shown itself to be unworthy of that title.
I am unable to call half a dozen members who wish to speak. As we are running over time, I am able to give Robin Harper only two minutes before we move to the wind-up speeches.
I want to explain to the SNP why I cannot support its motion. I observe with some pleasure that, at last, the Minister for Transport, who had two portfolios and no junior minister when she started, seems to be enjoying the kind of support from the Executive that she deserved last year but did not get. I cannot support the SNP's motion simply because I have confidence in what I believe that the minister has tried to achieve for Scotland in the past year and in what she continues to try to achieve.
The motion is previous, although the SNP is—quite rightly—trying to address a very important problem and to bring it out into the open. However, I look forward to the Transport and the Environment Committee's consideration of the detail of the matter—free of assertion and counter-assertion—and to coming to an agreement on a recommendation to the Parliament.
There is no doubt that the tendering process for the award of the contracts has raised many concerns, as was covered by Murray Tosh and other colleagues earlier in the debate. The Conservatives are content that those concerns will be fully investigated by the Parliament's Transport and the Environment Committee, and we support the invitation that was issued by the Minister for Transport to the Auditor General for Scotland to review the tendering process and the evaluation that was carried out in this case. I agree with Murray Tosh, Mr McAllion and Mr Harper, who have said that a rush to judgment today would be premature.
Whatever the rights and wrongs and arithmetical intricacies of the tendering process in question, we should not lose sight of the basic principles that are at stake. My party fully supports competitive tendering in relation to public works as the best method of securing best value for the taxpayer at local and national levels. Competitive tendering and contracting out of services is something that the Conservatives promoted while in government, and we are proud that we have always sought to ensure that public services are run in the interests of the taxpayers, rather than in the vested interests of the service providers.
Will David McLetchie take an intervention?
No, thank you, Mr Sheridan.
In the past, that was done in the face of opposition from the Labour party, at national and local levels. Labour fought the reforms tooth and nail.
Will David McLetchie give way?
No, thank you. It is a delicious irony that Labour is now defending a policy that it opposed so vehemently in the past, even although it defends it through gritted teeth.
The difference between the local authority and private sector contractors' bids was £190 million over the five-year contract period. We are told that that represents a saving on existing costs of about £75 million over five years. Those savings are welcome. However, that raises the question of what further savings could be achieved for hard-pressed council tax payers through competitive tendering for all local authority road contracts.
The fact that we support the principle behind the Minister for Transport's actions does not mean that we have any great confidence in the minister. Since her U-turns on motorway tolls and workplace parking taxes, her coat has been on a shooglie peg. As Mr Gibson pointed out, the minister was humiliated by her own back benchers in the debate on roads contracts only three weeks ago, and was abandoned by her ministerial colleagues. In the last reshuffle, the then Minister for Transport and the Environment lost half her job and it will not be long before she loses the rest of it. The blunt truth of the matter is that the Labour party has lost confidence in Sarah Boyack. Mr Kerr's pathetic attempts to kiss and make up will not change that harsh reality.
Will the member give way on that point?
No, thank you. No one who has Scotland's best interests at heart could support the protectionist sentiments that underpin the SNP motion. Its archaic attitude assumes that Scotland can be insulated from the modern world.
Will David McLetchie give way?
No, thank you—I am in the last minute of my speech.
The SNP is a dinosaur party that wishes to turn Scotland into a giant jurassic park. It is trying to wrest the banner of outmoded municipal socialism from a schizophrenic Labour party that does not know whether to let go or to cling on for dear life.
The Scottish Conservatives will have no truck with such outmoded attitudes; we believe that Scotland should be a progressive country that has nothing to fear and everything to gain—in this case—from public services being provided by the private sector in the interests of the public purse. I support Mr Tosh's amendment.
In winding up on the SNP's motion, I will concentrate on the key point of the debate—that this about real people and their employment. David McLetchie's attack of a moment ago on the SNP will be interpreted widely in the rural communities of Scotland, where his party aims to recover some of its lost ground.
No chance.
I know that there is no chance of that happening, but the Conservatives' attack on us will be interpreted as an attempt to recover lost ground. There is a lack of concern on the part of the Conservative party about the issue of employment, which affects many rural communities. One of the Conservatives' candidates aims to win over at the Westminster election some of the rural communities in the constituency that I represent. He will get an horrific reception when he goes to the depots that face closure because of the insensitivity and weakness of the tendering process. The people who are affected by such closures should be uppermost in our minds.
The other people who should be uppermost in our minds are those who came to observe the proceedings of this Parliament a few weeks ago, when they sat in the galleries and watched the debate on an SNP motion—in SNP time—to bring the matter of the tendering process before Parliament. They would have heard lots of brave words and wise sentiment and all sorts of great commitments, including great claims from Andy Kerr and great comments from Kate MacLean about how appalled they were at the process that was taking place. What has happened? The contracts have been awarded. All those representations have been disregarded, and the contracts have been awarded in a way that the Parliament did not want.
Will Mr Swinney give way?
Will Mr Swinney give way?
I will give way to Mr Tosh.
Can Mr Swinney explain why the SNP motion of three weeks ago did not call for the contracts to be deferred? What did he and his party do to pursue the matter?
We provided an opportunity to bring together as many people in the Parliament as possible to produce the parliamentary consensus that people want and that will make ministers listen. I will return to the point about ministers listening in a moment.
At the heart of the debate is the question of what Parliament can do to deliver for the people who sit in the public galleries and hear our debates and concerns, and who hope that the Parliament will bring ministers to account.
I want to address a couple of Andy Kerr's points. He attacked me for not mentioning trunk roads maintenance during First Minister's question time on the day of the earlier debate on the matter. There was a good reason for that. We had had a full parliamentary debate, during which the issues were well aired. Janis Hughes lodged a question, which was in the business bulletin for that day, in which she raised the same issues.
Why did not I raise the issue during First Minister's question time? It was because I was trying to hold the wretched Executive to account on free personal care for the elderly. If the Opposition had not held the Executive to account on that issue on Thursday 25 January in a debate, and during First Minister's question time—forcing the Minister for Parliament to come to the chamber to save himself from an embarrassing defeat—it would not have been the right selection of topics for holding the Executive to account in all that it does.
Andy Kerr accused us of having our principles and opportunism out of kilter. Well—Andy Kerr told Parliament:
"I have absolutely no confidence in Sarah Boyack's judgment on the matter."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 579.]
However, he stood before Parliament today, after the contracts have been awarded and signed and the pass has been sold, to say that all that he said—
I point out to Mr Swinney that the Transport and the Environment Committee and the Auditor General will consider those matters. That is what this Parliament is about—not pathetic motions.
That brings me to the second Labour contribution to which I want to refer, that of John McAllion, with whom I can normally agree on a number of things. He accused us of poor timing. In his intervention, Andy Kerr has just argued that we should have waited for the findings of the Transport and the Environment Committee and of the Auditor General, and that that was all that was required. However, if the Transport and the Environment Committee finds against the minister, what will happen?
Nothing.
Gil Paterson shouts "Nothing", and he is absolutely right. The contracts have been signed already and a pass has been sold.
John McAllion said that we held the naive view that Labour members might co-operate with us on a motion of no confidence in a minister. If we were naive, it was in believing that Labour members might—after the motion had been before Parliament for an honest and frank debate—vote at decision time in favour of a motion that we lodged and that was designed to capture the consensus of opinion on the widespread concern about the tendering process. However, although Labour members articulated their concerns in the chamber, they did nothing about them when it came to the vote.
John Swinney and other members of his party have spoken about the will of Parliament. If, at 5 o'clock, it is the will of the Parliament that we have confidence in the minister—as I am sure it will be—what will be the SNP's position?
The SNP will have defended its parliamentary right as the Opposition to hold the Executive to account for its failure to deliver for the people of Scotland.
John McAllion accused us of unnecessarily lodging the motion. At a full meeting of Dundee City Council on Monday evening, an SNP motion of no confidence in Sarah Boyack was passed by 15 votes to 12. That council is led by the Labour party and the motion was supported by Kate MacLean's election agent, Councillor John Letford. We are more in tune with what is happening in local authority chambers than the Executive is.
Does John Swinney accept that no other Labour member of the council voted for the SNP motion? Does he accept that Labour back benchers and others in the Parliament are able to articulate their views on the issue through the proper channels without supporting the bully-boys in Parliament?
Labour members are undoubtedly able to articulate their concerns. They have done so, and what they have said is recorded in the Official Report. The problem is that they do not vote on those concerns.
Murray Tosh made an interesting comment on the words of the First Minister on that fateful day, 25 January. The First Minister said:
"Today, as an act of good faith, I want to reflect on this morning's debate. It is not in the interests of the Parliament or the Executive for there to be the kind of rancour, mistrust and concerns that were expressed this morning. I cannot be specific, but I am sure that Bruce Crawford hears what I am saying and understands that I want to discuss the matters further."—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 657.]
That was another nod and a wink from Henry McLeish; another, "Stick with me and I'll make sure that everything's all right." The situation is the same regarding free personal care. The key point is that we had to drag the commitment to free personal care for the elderly kicking and screaming out of the First Minister. We are now holding the Executive to account for the remarks that the First Minister made to the Parliament on 25 January. Despite all the comforting words in response to Bruce Crawford and Janis Hughes, absolutely nothing happened other than that the contracts were signed. How can we take at face value remarks that the First Minister makes in the Parliament and how can we believe that he will address widespread parliamentary concern? That is why Opposition parties must use every device at their disposal to hold to account an Executive that tells the Parliament in good faith that it will deal with things, but which then welshes on that commitment.
Bruce Crawford has made a powerful case for the view that there were opportunities for savings to the public purse if the contract process had been handled properly.
Will the member give way?
The member is in his last minute.
The Executive has threatened the loss of more than 500 and possibly up to 3,500 jobs, but has expressed no real concern about that. The Opposition must use every device that it can to hold the Executive to account. The SNP motion does exactly that.
I welcome the opportunity to respond to the motion. Before I deal with the serious issue—trunk roads, rather than the SNP motion—I say that the Tories have been characteristically out of touch with reality. We had "Silence of the Lambs" from Murray Tosh and "Jurassic Park" from David McLetchie—one does not have to make a big conceptual jump to end up with "Titanic" to describe the Tories.
Will the First Minister give way?
I will give way later.
He is in his first minute.
I understand that the Tories are anxious.
Another general point that has arisen in the debate is that the SNP has screwed things up once again. It is impossible for SNP members to deny that the motion is anything more than cheap political opportunism. However, I want also to pay due credit to Bruce Crawford and the SNP. I want to share with the Parliament information about a meeting that took place in Perth on 31 July 1997. People must sometimes make tough decisions and Bruce Crawford may have to be congratulated on doing so. He was leader of Perth and Kinross Council, which was then putting out to tender a grounds maintenance contract. The contract was eventually won by Brophy, a subsidiary of Thames Water plc. The press and public were excluded from that meeting. Labour councillors suggested that there should be a six-month delay before the contract was awarded.
However—I must pay tribute to an inconsistency—the 18 SNP members of the council rejected that suggestion and agreed to award the tender to Brophy. I raise that not to make a political point, but merely to applaud it. There are times when one faces issues of legality and contractual compliance in which one must act accordingly. What members cannot stomach is a lecture on probity and effective procedures, given that in another life the person who now holds the SNP transport portfolio put forward a completely different view.
It is a pity that the First Minister did not take the story forward a little to a meeting that took place between Perth and Kinross Council and the late First Minister when he was Secretary of State for Scotland. Representatives from across the council asked whether we could legally delay the contract. The Labour secretary of state refused and threatened the councillors with surcharge.
Bruce Crawford acknowledged that everything that I said was true. To be fair to him, I admit that tough choices have to be made. Bruce Crawford speaks here with one voice, but spoke with another voice elsewhere. Sir David, I cannot use a word that at Westminster would be considered unparliamentary, but it starts with "h" and finishes with "y".
Henry!
Good point. To clear up any lingering doubts, I will put the word on record; it is "hypocrisy".
I have listened to the debate and to previous discussions here and elsewhere. I recognise fully the range of views, emotions and passions that are aroused by the question of trunk roads maintenance. Against that background, it is all the more important that we think clearly about why we are having the debate.
It is important that we should agree about the factual background and the contractual legal framework by which we are bound; about the process and how the Executive adhered to the process; and, finally, about the outcome. I will do more than that. I will show how, at every step of the way on this complex matter, Sarah Boyack and the Executive acted with full regard for their responsibility for probity and value for money in public spending. We have acted with full cognisance of process and probity and we have acknowledged every detail of the relevant guidance, including UK and European law. That is the world in which we must conduct the business of government and deliver results. Despite the obvious wishes of a number of members who have spoken, there is no other world to do it in.
The First Minister is clear about the processes and what was said and done. What could he possibly have meant when he said to Bruce Crawford:
"I cannot be specific, but I am sure that Bruce Crawford hears what I am saying and understands that I want to discuss the matters further"?—[Official Report, 25 January 2001; Vol 10, c 657.]
What concessions, what behaviours, what policies were promised and delivered?
I stand by those words. At that point, we proceeded to have the audit done—that was important—and we looked at every conceivable aspect of the issue. That is why I captured that process in my remarks.
I want to make some progress—I will then take John Swinney's intervention.
Historically, trunk road maintenance was carried out by local authorities, which acted as agents of the then Scottish Office. That situation obtained five years ago.
Since 1996, local authorities have continued to do the work, because local authority consortia succeeded in the first tendering process that was imposed by the Public Works Contract Regulations 1991, which were brought in to implement European Community competition regulations.
All those who are concerned have known that the works would be retendered from 1 April 2001. Consultations began as long ago as April 1999. Of the 66 responses to the consultation paper, 27 were from local authorities, 15 of which saw advantages in operating companies. Following the decision to proceed to tender for four regionally based operating companies, tender documents were issued in May 2000. Four hundred and thirty-three tender queries resulted and 30 tender bulletins were issued.
Full consultation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities took place in the form of correspondence, a meeting with officials and a meeting with the minister. On 4 September 2000, in connection with the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations, COSLA said that
"although there has been some delay in getting this matter clarified, the clarity and explicitness of your reply"—
that is, the minister's reply—
"is very helpful and I understand that local authorities involved in this process are also pleased to see the outcome."
Will the First Minister answer a question that was posed today on further consultation? If the Transport and the Environment Committee finds that the process was fundamentally flawed, that the process has not delivered what was expected and that the contractors have not been dealt with fairly, what will the Executive do on receipt of that committee's report?
If the Audit Scotland report or the committee report convinces us that there are serious difficulties with the contract, we can do two things. First, we can suspend the contract. That would involve a process of renegotiation to carry forward the existing contract. Secondly, that point can be followed by a retendering process.
A couple of weeks ago, we were clearly told that it would be impossible to suspend the tendering process, because that would be against the law and against European legislation. Why is the First Minister now saying that suspension might be possible? I hope that the back benchers are listening.
Bruce Crawford completely misses the point again. There is no evidence whatever at this stage to justify such a course of action. That is why Audit Scotland and the Transport and the Environment Committee will want to look at the process further.
Will the First Minister give way?
No. I want to make some progress on points in response to Bruce Crawford's intervention.
All tenders were submitted by 30 October 2000 and fully assessed against the quality standards before cash bids were evaluated. Given the time scale and nature of the process, there can be no serious suggestion that it was rushed or skewed against any bidder.
In mid-December, the Minister for Transport, Sarah Boyack, was aware of the outcome and quite properly questioned officials closely about the process, its rigour and fairness and the extent of external validation that was involved. Thereafter, there was further discussion of the outcome and further questioning of the officials by a wider group of ministers. That was done in explicit recognition of the wider implications of the process and its outcome. Therefore, I am satisfied that a long, complex and exhaustive assessment within the relevant competition rules was carried out with sensitivity, rigour and fairness.
Although the process was challenged, the resulting three court judgments in the Court of Session served only to increase the Executive's confidence in both the process and its outcome. What is more, having completed the process with due probity and care, had we done anything other than award the contracts to the lowest bidders, we would have faced the real risk of being taken to court, losing in court and wasting taxpayers' money on compensation.
As members know, the outcome that the Minister for Transport announced by way of a written answer on 2 February was that two contracts each were awarded to Amey Highways Ltd and BEAR Scotland Ltd. On the point that was raised by David McLetchie, it is important to note that an extensive and now legally validated process that covered quality, quantities and price produced the following results: in the two southern areas, the Amey bids, at £176 million over five years, offer savings of £50 million on the current arrangements; in the northern areas, the BEAR bids, at £182 million over five years, offer a saving of £25 million.
Considerable concerns remain, particularly in the south-east, where the Balfour Beatty contract with the local authorities and two other private sector contracts came in at £97 million. Much of the contract is based on a lump sum, and there are concerns that the successful bidder could achieve such massive savings only if winter maintenance work was undertaken to a lower standard. The Executive must explain how the client side will work and how the quality side is to be guaranteed, so that people can be assured that remoter rural roads in particular will not be under-maintained.
The First Minister will take no more interventions.
The winning bids were based on the same materials, which will be supplied, and there is no suggestion that quality will diminish; the contracts do not allow for that. We must bear in mind the substantial differences in the cost factors—even Murray Tosh and David McLetchie conceded that point. There is no evidence to suggest that there was anything untoward in that part of the process.
The local authority bids were more than 50 per cent higher than the winning bids and were evaluated as costing £190 million more over the five-year period. Clear quality standards are built into the contracts, which are binding, so there is no question that the winning bids will lead to lower maintenance standards. I must also put a stop to the idea that the winning bidders have no experience—both contractors have a proven track record; Amey already maintains much of the M74.
With three court judgments in favour of the Executive, backed up by an independent audit on quantities and methodology, we can be confident that the best outcomes were achieved from the bidding process and that they represent best value.
I want to address the concerns that have been expressed by COSLA and individual local authorities and I praise the convener of the Transport and the Environment Committee for pushing those concerns forward. There have been many conflicting reports about the number of DLO staff who are employed on trunk road maintenance. I assure members that Amey and BEAR have already approached existing employers to pursue staff transfers under TUPE. Both are advertising for staff and each will give preference to TUPE transfers. A preliminary assessment by BEAR suggests that the number of staff who are designated to transfer under TUPE in the northern areas is likely to be broadly in line with the number of staff that will be required. In the southern areas, the contractor still awaits detailed lists of staff who are considered to be covered by TUPE and I urge the authorities that are involved to provide that information quickly.
The savings that will be made from awarding the contracts to the lowest bidders will be available for us to invest in vital services for the public. It is also significant that the Minister for Transport secured an additional £70 million in the spending review for local authorities to spend on local roads and bridges. In addition to that extra work, there will be an opportunity for local authorities to bid for discrete contract work on packages of £150,000 and more; local authorities already win a significant amount of such work.
Please come to a close, First Minister.
I will finish, Presiding Officer.
I appreciate fully that these matters are not simple and that detailed and reasoned arguments have not always been heard or listened to as they should have been. Emotions have run high and the disappointment of the local authorities that contended for the contracts is clear.
Let me repeat: the Executive has confidence in the existing process—our confidence is supported by the views of the courts and by the independent audit. In order to provide further reassurance, Audit Scotland will investigate and will report in due course. Therefore, the public can also have confidence. I urge members to reject the motion of no confidence.