Plenary, 16 Sep 2004

Meeting date: Thursday, September 16, 2004

Official Report 732KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

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Prime Minister (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister and what issues will be discussed. (S2F-1038)

I said last week that I did not want to do this every week, so I apologise, but after what I said last week, it would be wrong not to congratulate Andrew Murray on his outstanding achievement at the weekend in winning the US Open boys tennis championship. [Applause.] It would be truly remarkable if the first British person to win Wimbledon for a very long time was a Scot.

I have no immediate plans to meet the Prime Minister, but in my next conversation with him, I intend to raise with him my ambition that the civil service in Scotland should be the most innovative and the best in the United Kingdom. I would welcome his support to help us to achieve that objective.

I, too, congratulate Andrew Murray on raising his game. I am sure that the First Minister will learn some lessons from that.

Lord Fraser's report on the Holyrood project confirms that it was decisions that were taken before the Parliament existed that sowed the seeds of the fiasco that has cost Scottish taxpayers dear. Does the First Minister acknowledge that, regardless of what civil servants messed up and when, and of whether members of the Scottish Parliament voted for the project as he did, or against it as I did, all politicians have been tainted by the whole sorry saga? Does he agree that, to move on, politicians must stand up, take responsibility and end the it-wisnae-me culture, and that the first step in that process is to admit the mistakes of the past? If he had known then what we all know now, would he still have voted in June 1999 to press ahead with the Holyrood project?

As Lord Fraser's report says, it was impossible to know then what we know now, but it was always the case that we had to have a Parliament building in Scotland for our new Parliament and that we wanted a Parliament building that would rise to the occasion, perhaps raise the game and be an international showcase in which we could have the quality of debates that people in Scotland want. It is absolutely the case that in the past five years, people in Scotland have—rightly, as I have said many times—become increasingly angry at how costs have escalated and delays have occurred.

That is why I agree with Nicola Sturgeon that ministers and other politicians should accept responsibility. Last year, I did that as First Minister. I established the inquiry that would get to the bottom of the matter, produce an accurate and full record and ultimately make the recommendations that would allow us to ensure that such a situation did not happen again.

I reiterate what I said yesterday, shortly after Lord Fraser published his report: I support his recommendations in full and I will ensure that recommendations that relate to the work of the Executive, ministers and the civil service are implemented immediately. I will also ensure that we use the report to provide the momentum for further change and improvement and to speed progress towards the sort of civil service and government in Scotland for which people voted when they voted for devolution seven years ago.

I am sorry that the First Minister dodged the direct question, because what the Scottish people want right now is frankness from politicians. The fact is that if Parliament had voted in 1999 for a pause in the project, that would have saved some of the £150 million that Lord Fraser says could have been saved. That money could have been spent on schools and hospitals.

The fundamental problem that Lord Fraser highlighted is that our system of government too often rests on the principle that civil servants do not tell and politicians do not ask. That is why ministers and Parliament did not have all the facts. Will the First Minister agree that what badly needs to change is a system in which the Sir Humphreys rather than the ministers take the decisions and then take the rap when things go wrong?

On the third and final point, Lord Fraser made specific recommendations yesterday about the information that should go to ministers. I accept those in full and I will ensure that they are implemented. Indeed, the permanent secretary has said exactly the same thing today. What is important, though, is that we use Lord Fraser's report to move forward. We can all speculate about what might have happened over the past five years. Indeed, it is entirely possible that, if there had been a further six-month delay in the project, the costs could have escalated by £150 million just as easily as they could have been reduced.

What is important is that those of us who now have the responsibilities learn the lessons from what happened and take an accurate record from a very independent figure, someone who has never been a political friend of mine or of anybody on the Executive benches, someone whose reputation is intact and who has put forward a series of recommendations that we can implement. We will take that report and move further and faster towards the reforms that are required.

It should not be the case just that we look forward to further progress and, indeed, praise the progress that has already been made inside the civil service in Scotland over the past five years. We must go further and increase the number of civil servants who are externally recruited and the number who have the professional specialisms that appear to have been so lacking back then. We must use not just new technology, but performance management and everything else that we would expect in a modern organisation to ensure that our civil service here in Scotland performs to the best of its ability and delivers the objectives set by this Government and this Parliament. That must be our objective.

People in Scotland might—rightly—have blamed many people in this Parliament and beyond over the past five years, but they also want us to be mature enough to move on and say that the time has come to learn the lessons and to get on and build a better Scotland.

But the problem that the Fraser report highlights is not just one of civil servants, but one of the relationship between civil servants and ministers who do not take responsibility. We have a Minister for Health and Community Care who is not in control of hospital closures and a Minister for Justice who does not read the Reliance contract, so the public have a right to conclude that not enough in the culture of government has changed. It is not enough to promise reforms; the public have to know that change is being made and that lessons are being learned.

The only reason that the truth has come out about Holyrood is that Lord Fraser had full access to the minutes, memos and e-mails between ministers and civil servants—documents that would otherwise have stayed secret for 30 years. He shone a light into government. We cannot now allow that light to go out. Therefore, will the First Minister now agree to revisit the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 to ensure that the advice that ministers receive and the questions that they ask are always open to public scrutiny? Politicians must be open with the Scottish people at all times. Will the First Minister pledge today to end once and for all the culture of secrecy within government in this country?

I believe that that is a silly suggestion and it is certainly not one that we are going to take up. If Miss Sturgeon is ever close to government—I do not expect that she will be—she will understand exactly why that has to be the case. I want the civil service leading the way, not hiding away. I want us in Scotland to have the most innovative, most professional civil service in the whole country. I believe that the reforms that we have brought in over the past five years have already got us down that road. However, we need to go further and faster and we intend to do so. When we do, the civil service in Scotland will not be delivering either for itself or, indeed, for this partnership Government: it will be delivering for Scotland. That is what matters; that is what this Parliament building was ultimately all about; and that is what has now got to happen.

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Cabinet (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S2F-1030)

At the Cabinet meeting next Wednesday, we will discuss our budgets for the next three years, which are to be announced in Parliament shortly thereafter.

I thank the First Minister for that answer. I look forward to, but do not expect, a substantial cut in the tax burden on Scots in that budget. However, we will wait and see the details.

I note that, in relation to the Fraser report, the First Minister has been talking about civil service reform. I would agree that the reform of the civil service may well contribute to better government in Scotland today. However, does the First Minister agree that that should not obscure the fact that ministers are accountable to Parliament and the people for the decisions that are taken and that civil servants are accountable to ministers, and that we must not get that the wrong way round? Does he also agree that, if ministers do not accept those core principles of our constitution and fail to accept their responsibilities, our whole system of democratic accountability will break down and that that will further erode trust in politicians, Parliament and Government?

I absolutely agree with that. That is precisely why I took the initiative last year to set up an inquiry. I did that to ensure that the facts were on the record with recommendations that we could take forward. I decided precisely that the inquiry would be headed by a former Conservative minister, who I am sure also understands that point. As a leading Tory in the House of Lords, he is completely independent of anyone on these benches and is someone whose reputation should ensure that the end report is clearly accepted by people across Scotland. I hope that Mr McLetchie will recognise that and accept how Lord Fraser has conducted his business.

I accept that ministers have responsibilities. That is why I expect ministers in this team to sort out problems as they occur and to anticipate them where possible. However, I also expect ministers to accept responsibility for taking Scotland forward. That is why the inquiry was established. That is why I accept each one of its recommendations and that is why we will now move forward, using the report and the lessons that have been learned to improve Scotland.

I agree with the First Minister that there are important recommendations, in particular on public procurement processes and on the construction and financing of major public sector projects. I hope that those lessons will be learned.

I was pleased to hear the First Minister accept the principle of ministerial responsibility, which lies at the heart of our system of government. Having accepted that principle, will he therefore accept that, whatever the shortcomings—so graphically described in Lord Fraser's report—of some of the civil servants who were involved in the Holyrood project, those who are to blame must, in the last analysis, be those who took the crucial political decisions? Ministers chose the site and the architect. Ministers pressed ahead regardless of cost. Ministers failed to ask the appropriate questions of their civil servants. Ministers—and Labour MSPs—voted to press ahead with the project in 1999. Throughout the process, ministers—including the First Minister when he was Minister for Finance—abdicated their financial responsibility and continued to sign blank cheques. The First Minister's failure to make the BBC hand over the tapes means that, according to the Fraser inquiry report, the inquiry is still not formally closed. Given that litany of failure, will the First Minister accept the ministerial and collective responsibility of his party and of his colleagues for those disastrous political decisions?

On the final point, I remind Mr McLetchie that we live in a democracy, not a dictatorship. In my view, politicians should not dictate to broadcasting organisations what decisions they should make on their research material. I hope that Lord Fraser, like the rest of us, will be able to view that material in due course. I regret the fact that the BBC did not co-operate, but in a democracy it should not be forced to do so. I believe that very strongly indeed.

Let me also say that it is easy—I shall not go so far as to say that it is cheap—to criticise someone who is not here to answer for himself. However, if Donald Dewar were here, I think that he would indeed have accepted responsibility. Perhaps he would have accepted responsibility far more than he should but, as the honourable man that he was, I am sure that he would have done so. I have no doubt about that whatsoever.

However, as I have said before, I wish that all members, in particular members of the four main parties, would accept their responsibility for the fact that the building project has been in the hands of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body since 1 June 1999. As members of the corporate body, every one of those parties—the Scottish National Party, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, but also the Conservative party—took part in every decision that was made. Ultimately, they share some of the responsibility. I am prepared to accept, as I have been all along, my share of that responsibility as an individual MSP. As First Minister, I accept fully my responsibility to ensure that this never happens again and to ensure that Scotland can now move forward. However, Mr McLetchie and the nationalists should accept their responsibilities. We were all involved in the decisions, so we should all learn the lessons.

As John Home Robertson has withdrawn question 4 to allow the questioning on the issue to continue, I will take a few more supplementary questions.

I welcome the First Minister's response to what is a constructive report. I suppose that it is inevitable that the usual suspects are still peddling the same old drivel, regardless of what Lord Fraser said. If any apology is due to Scotland for the fact that we have Scottish granite paving and cladding on Scotland's Parliament building instead of Portuguese granite, I am prepared to offer that apology.

Does the First Minister agree that the time has come to recognise that this building is a tremendous national asset for Scotland? Does the Executive have plans to take advantage of the image of a confident new Scotland to promote communities throughout the country, and Scotland as a whole abroad?

I hope that the international visitors who are in the gallery today are impressed by what they see and by our resolve, which I have mentioned before, to ensure that we learn the lessons of what has happened. We now have a national asset and our job is to use it to promote our country, not just for tourism; we must promote in a symbolic way everything that has now been refreshed about Scottish identity, confidence and the future for Scotland. I hope that we can do so and we intend to start around the official opening of the building, which is on 9 October.

It wisnae me.

I want to return to what should be concerning us: the working relationship between the Executive and civil servants, which the Fraser report illuminated. I fully accept that the First Minister has agreed that that relationship should be changed and modernised. Does he worry, as I do, that worthwhile reforms are not in his gift, given that they require the consent of Whitehall because civil servants here are home civil servants? What assurances can the First Minister give that his best intentions will not be bogged down in the corridors of power, which I think are still in Victoria Quay, not St Andrew's House?

One reason why there has been so much progress on civil service reform in Scotland in the past five years is precisely because the civil service in Scotland is now directly accountable to me and to the other members of the ministerial team in Scotland. Those civil servants may be employed by the UK home civil service, but they are accountable—for their actions, the direction in which they work and for the priorities that are set for them—to the team of ministers and to me as First Minister. That is a good working arrangement.

Devolution was not devised for Scotland so that we could become insular and restrict people's ability to have contact outside our borders. It is good and healthy that there is interchange and dialogue between the civil service in Scotland and in London and that people can move within the home civil service to develop their skills, professionalism and careers. However, it is important that our civil service is accountable to the Scottish ministers. I assure Margo MacDonald that that is the case, which is precisely why we will lead the drive for further reform and modernisation and why we will not need to ask anyone's permission to do so.

Yesterday, Lord Fraser suggested at his press conference that Labour ministers should have asked more searching questions about the Holyrood costs. Given that the First Minister was Minister for Finance at that time, does he regret failing to pose the right questions then to his civil servants?

If Mr Ewing checks the evidence, he will see that it is recorded that I posed questions. In the short time that I was Minister for Finance before the project was handed over, and in the weeks following that, and in the time up to my announcement to the Parliament of the budget in September 1999, I insisted absolutely that there should be full disclosure of all costs and all potential costs that might have been outstanding. That was our understanding at the time. That was the right approach to take and we have taken it in the Parliament.

Our financial systems are far more open and transparent than the systems ever were at Westminster and than they are today at Whitehall. We in this Parliament have a system that we should be proud of. It declares in an open and transparent way where money is being spent and it seeks approval for that expenditure in advance. That is a mark of this new Parliament, and it is something on which we should build in years to come.

Given Nicola Sturgeon's last comments, does the First Minister agree that the truth has come out about Holyrood precisely because he set up the inquiry? Looking to the future and to the lessons that can be learned, following the defect period, and given the fact that this is a specialist building that might require high maintenance, does the First Minister know what maintenance arrangements are in place? Will construction professionals be involved in maintenance, or will we be tied to the original contractors? If so, are we talking about blank cheques again? Can they charge what they like? We need to ask those questions.

Although I welcome Elaine Smith's reminder to those who might try to portray the report as coming from anything other than a proper inquiry that was set up for the best of objectives, I might be in trouble with you, Presiding Officer, if I were to interfere in answering questions on the maintenance of the new building. Although I would love to comment on that in some respects, I would be very happy for the Presiding Officer to deal with the matter. I am sure that he will write to Elaine Smith with the answer that she requires.

I shall do so, in a written form that can be circulated to members.

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Hospital Closures (Moratorium)

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive endorses calls for a moratorium on the closure of hospitals and rationalisation of health services first made in the Parliament in October and December 2003, following calls at the Parliament's Health Committee for such a moratorium and recent protests against proposed health service cuts and closures. (S2F-1055)

No. A moratorium would be meaningless. In some cases, it would also be unsafe.

The First Minister cannot continue to ignore the grass-roots rebellion against hospital closures and the centralisation and rationalisation of vital services, which is sweeping across Scotland. In Inverness and Fort William, in Inverclyde and Dumbarton, in Glasgow, Livingston and Wick, tens of thousands of ordinary Scots are protesting against the loss of hospitals and access to vital hospital services.

Does the First Minister recognise that the calls for an immediate moratorium on further closures and service reductions are coming from health unions, medical professionals, the Parliament's Health Committee and ordinary Scots? Will he take back his jibe that a moratorium would be a "meaningless" gesture and open his ears to the ordinary Scots who prize the health service as their national asset?

The only immediate impact of a moratorium would be to leave the people of Glasgow and the west of Scotland, and indeed people in the rest of Scotland who use Glasgow's maternity services, in uncertainty until at least the spring of next year, which would be extremely unhelpful, not just for the best use of resources and the best management of the health service in Glasgow, but for all those who use that service and who want to be able to plan for the use of that service in years to come.

The moratorium that Mr Sheridan calls for would in some instances—and certainly could in others—lead to an unsafe situation. That has been made absolutely clear by a number of clinicians and medical professionals over the past week. I will quote only one: Professor David Kirk, lead consultant urologist at Gartnavel hospital. He said:

"the moratorium … would be greeted with dismay by all those working hard within the health service to improve standards of care."

I have with me a whole series of other quotes, which have been made on the record over the past week by medical professionals expressing that same concern.

Malcolm Chisholm has made it perfectly clear that, where decisions are not urgently required and where decisions could be affected by the outcome of the national planning group on care in our hospitals and related centres, those decisions will not be taken before next March, when the planning group reports to him. Where he does have a responsibility before then to make a decision in the best interests of patients, he should make that decision. Just because people shout loudly, they are not necessarily correct.

It appears that the First Minister has the wrong man heading up his national strategy and reporting to the Parliament next March. At last week's Health Committee meeting, Helen Eadie made the following point:

"Some decisions that are coming before us are about not just small general hospitals … but big strategic hospitals, such as the homoeopathic hospital and hospitals in Glasgow and elsewhere that cater for people in my constituency. It is not unreasonable to ask for a moratorium for only those six months."

Professor Kerr indicated agreement and the convener asked him whether he agreed with a moratorium or with the statement. He said:

"The statement is reasonable."—[Official Report, Health Committee, 9 September 2004; c 1179.]

Ask a question, Mr Sheridan.

The man appointed by the First Minister to investigate a national plan believes that it is reasonable to suggest a moratorium on the decisions for the next six months. Will the First Minister eventually take sides? Instead of taking the side of the consultants and health board managers, whose views are welcome but not tablets of stone, will he start to take the side of the ordinary people of Scotland, who see their health service being dissected before their eyes and who want a national plan and a national strategy, not more cuts and health service reductions?

To be absolutely clear, there are no district general hospitals in Scotland whose sites will close. There are no cuts in the health service in Scotland. There are the biggest increases ever in our health budget here in Scotland. The choice that is in front of us is a difficult choice for the politicians and a difficult choice for the managers, but—if Mr Sheridan will listen to what is being said—it is also a difficult choice for those in the health service who are advising us on the matter. When they make their recommendations, it is right and proper for the Minister for Health and Community Care to make a judgment on them in the best interests of patients, having listened to their responses during consultation and having taken on board how patients in individual geographical areas might be affected by changes in the location of services.

Those changes can happen in both directions. Yes, in some instances, because of the nature of the health service today—modern 21st century care—services will move from one area to another in a way that appears to be centralisation. There will also, however, be the services that are happening right across Scotland, such as new renal units in the different hospitals that Mr Sheridan claims are closing but which are in fact developing new services. Those units and new services are happening in more local areas too, so changes are happening in both directions. Every decision is difficult, but we need that national overview and that is what we will have before further decisions, that are not immediately required, are taken.

The First Minister will know that I am anxious about the decision on the future in my constituency of the Queen Mother's hospital, which faces closure. However, I commend the Minister for Health and Community Care for how he has conducted the process so far because he has listened to clinicians and midwives on the decision while the health board has not. I just hope that he makes the right decision. Will the First Minister assure me that he values the unique service model of care that is based at the Queen Mother's hospital? Does he understand that it delivers a specialist and integrated service, that it is a national service for mothers and babies throughout Scotland, and that it affects many members in the chamber? Does he agree that, rather than agree to a moratorium on the decision, he should assure the Parliament that a decision will be taken as soon as possible and that he will do all that he can to ensure that the Queen Mother's hospital has a future?

As Pauline McNeill knows, I absolutely understand not only the strength of feeling on the issue in Glasgow and outside Glasgow but the importance of the service that is provided at that hospital. It is precisely because of that understanding and that concern that Malcolm Chisholm has spent many months trying to ensure that the final decision that is reached is in the long-term interests of not only the patients who use the services today, but the patients who will use them in the years to come. That decision is required, and it is required soon. A moratorium would prevent it from being made, and Pauline McNeill is absolutely right to say that that is one of the best reasons why a moratorium would be so wrong. Malcolm Chisholm will announce his decision as soon as possible and I hope that that decision is one that can be justified and seen as right by people in all parts of the chamber.

There is just enough time for Christine Grahame.

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Dungavel House

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive has had any discussions with the commissioner for children and young people in Scotland about the health and welfare of children at Dungavel House immigration removal centre. (S2F-1033)

Yes, I have discussed the matter with the commissioner personally.

Given the fact that it is plain that the children's commissioner's role in Scotland is severely constricted, despite her comment that children are not a reserved matter, I refer the minister to section 52(2) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 with which he is, no doubt, familiar and which self-evidently is not reserved. Does he agree that a referral under that section, regarding individual children in Dungavel, could competently be made to a children's panel by which a determination might be made to remove children from those premises?

I do not have all the facts about individual cases before me. However, it is my understanding that not only do we have a regular programme of proper social work inspections and other inspections at Dungavel, involving the agencies that are established by the Parliament and that are accountable to the Parliament, but that children who are in Dungavel or who may, at some time, spend some time there could be involved in many aspects of our children's hearings system and wider children's services. My understanding is that there have been examples of that in the past, which I hope helps to answer Christine Grahame's question. The important fact is that there are no children currently in Dungavel. Whatever attitudes members may have to the issues of immigration and asylum, everyone will welcome that fact.

I apologise to David Mundell. We did not reach question 6.

Meeting suspended until 14:00.

On resuming—