First Minister's Question Time
Prime Minister (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister and what issues they will discuss. (S2F-2655)
I have no immediate plans to meet the Prime Minister.
The First Minister knows that getting drug addicts into treatment is vital in the fight against crime in our communities. I remind him that, last April, I expressed concern about the length of time that addicts who have been referred for treatment must wait simply to be assessed. He promised then that the problem was being tackled. Why have the waiting times continued to rise since then?
I recognise that all parties are concerned about those waiting times—the Executive parties do not have a monopoly of concern in that respect—and that both the main Opposition parties and others have expressed concerns about them. We all know that they affect individual families and the communities in which crime takes place.
We must ensure not only that budgets are increased—they have increased for several years—but that there are more places for rehabilitation and that the effectiveness of those places is improved. That is the essential ingredient in reducing the waiting times and why we have moved to double the number of locations in which rehabilitation is available and to almost double the number of places from which rehabilitation services are available. We have continued to secure increases in the budget in order to ensure that those who are responsible for referring people for rehabilitation can do so without financial constraint.
We may return to budgets later, but I want to concentrate first on the scale of the problem.
I draw the First Minister's attention to the most recent figures that my office has obtained from the Government's statistics department, which show that, in the last quarter for which figures are available, 1,246 addicts waited for more than six months to be assessed. The figure is up by a third since I previously raised the issue. Even worse, 600 of those addicts waited for more than a year to be assessed, which is a 60 per cent increase since last year. Why has the First Minister failed to keep the clear promise that he made in the chamber last year to increase the availability of initial assessments?
The availability of initial assessments is important, but it is not the only issue. We must ensure that there are places to which people can go, which is why investment in treatment has nearly doubled in five years and why, in 2005-06, £23.7 million was specifically made available to health boards for drug treatment. That amount compares with the £12.3 million that was available back in 2001. Some £3 million is specifically earmarked for projects that are designed to reduce waiting times.
I can give Ms Sturgeon examples of the progress that has been made. We are all frustrated by the speed at which progress can take place, but it is not only the allocation of resources that is important—the availability and effectiveness of places are important too.
The new clinic in Edinburgh will reduce waiting times from the current 44 weeks, which is totally unacceptable, to four weeks. I see Mr Morgan, who is at Ms Sturgeon's side, complaining. He should be pleased about the three new projects in Dumfries and Galloway, which will reduce waiting times there from 18 weeks to two weeks.
It is essential that we do not simply throw money at the issue. We must ensure that places are available and that appropriate referrals take place in order to ensure that people are rehabilitated and kept off drugs and that they do not simply maintain a drug-related lifestyle that can continue to cause problems for them and for others.
Let us turn to budgets and rehabilitation places. I suggest to the First Minister that, bad though the waiting times for assessment are, the problem does not stop there. Is he aware that, according to the most recent figures, the number of addicts waiting more than one year after being assessed to get access to rehabilitation has gone up by 64 per cent since I last raised the issue with him in the chamber?
There is no doubt that the figures will increase concern about the Government's decision, reported by the BBC this morning, to withdraw funding from a drug addiction project in Aberdeen. Do not the figures raise an even more serious question? The First Minister mentioned budgets. In light of the new figures, will he explain why next year's budget proposes a real-terms cut in spending on drug treatment and rehabilitation programmes?
There are two fundamental points at the heart of Ms Sturgeon's question. The first relates to the specific project that she mentioned. She should be wary about repeating in the chamber claims that are reported elsewhere without checking her facts. It is simply not true that the Executive has withdrawn funding from the incite project in Aberdeen. The project was funded, as promised, from 2003 to 2005, and all the funding was delivered. Project staff identified funding for a further six months up until the end of the year. Even this year, when additional funding could have been considered, it was not the Executive but the local drug action team in Aberdeen that made decisions about that funding. It is absolutely right that such decisions are made locally. To repeat such a claim, as Ms Sturgeon did, without checking the facts demeans the debate and this discussion—we should check our facts first.
My second point is that, against the backdrop of the increase in funding and places and the improvement that is now taking place throughout Scotland because of the greater clarity of the objective to secure drug-free lifestyles, Ms Sturgeon must answer questions about her plans to reduce local authority expenditure in Scotland by £1 billion. That would have a direct impact on authorities' ability to buy the available places, and the overall economic impact of her plans for an independent Scotland would result in fewer available resources, not just for drug treatment and rehabilitation but for other services. Until she answers those questions, she has a cheek coming here and asking anybody about anything.
I remind the First Minister that he had two opportunities in the past week to debate live on television with the Scottish National Party and pitch his policies against ours. On both occasions, he ducked the opportunity. I also remind him that this is First Minister's question time: it is his opportunity to answer questions about his record, not to repeat untruths about the SNP that he does not have the courage to back up in debate.
Is it not the case that, on drugs, the Government has been long on promises and very short on delivery? I remind the First Minister that back in 2004 he promised
"a comprehensive improvement of drug rehabilitation services".
However, all we see today are increasing waiting times and funding cuts in the Government's proposed budget. After eight years of broken promises, do not the communities that live with drug addiction and drug-related crime day in and day out now need a new Government with the drive, energy and commitment to tackle this massive national challenge?
Once again, I will correct the facts. It was said two years ago that there would be a review and an improvement. I said that in the chamber after meeting a family from Aberdeen—[Interruption.] The Scottish nationalists might sigh because they think that such matters are not important, but families are affected by them. The parents of that family had to buy heroin for their daughter while she waited for treatment so that she did not get involved in prostitution. I was touched by that story, as any human being would be, and determined to improve the situation.
The reality is that, in the years since then, funding has gone from £12.3 million to £23.7 million and we have virtually doubled the number of places in, and the number of locations of, free rehabilitation services. The reality is that the drug strategy in Scotland, which includes tackling supply, increased seizures, tougher sentences and seizing drug dealers' assets, has led to a decrease in the number of individuals who present themselves at such services. The number of new clients who report heroin use is down, although the percentage of new clients who report cocaine use has increased, which is why we must tackle cocaine. Crucially, the number of youngsters in our schools who present is, at last, after many years of increase, reported to be stable. It is the outputs that matter, such as the number of rehabilitation places and the number of people whom we take from a drug lifestyle to a drug-free lifestyle. The number of people throughout Scotland who get involved in a drug lifestyle in the first place has come down. It is the outputs that matter; not the party politics that we witness regularly in the Parliament from the SNP.
Cabinet (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S2F-2656)
The Scottish Cabinet will discuss matters of importance to Scotland.
I hope that the Cabinet will discuss the increasing drug abuse that we have just heard about, which is a serious issue afflicting Scotland today. I sincerely hope that the First Minister is aware that there is a drug-related death almost every day in Scotland and that, every day, 37 new patients seek treatment for their addiction. If I heard correctly, he said a moment ago that cocaine addiction is increasing. Will he therefore explain why the discontinuance of the project in Aberdeen for dealing with cocaine addiction represents progress in the fight against drugs?
I am sorry, but I thought that Annabel Goldie was in the chamber when I addressed that point earlier. I apologise if she did not hear my answer to Ms Sturgeon, which, for the sake of avoiding any confusion, I will repeat. First, it is not true for Opposition parties or the BBC to suggest that the Executive has in recent months withdrawn funding from the project in Aberdeen. Secondly, it is true that every project in Scotland that receives money, either locally or nationally, should be assessed for its effectiveness, because, as I thought Miss Goldie and I agreed previously, we want to secure more effective drug treatment and rehabilitation services in Scotland. The aim is that fewer people will simply continue their dependent lifestyle and more people will have a drug-free lifestyle at the end of their treatment.
It is precisely because treatment and rehabilitation are so important that we have increased the number of treatment places and the number of locations where they are available. We have also allocated extra resources and, at the same time, secured the important review of the nature of treatment, with the aim of ensuring that more people who go into treatment end it successfully.
I suppose that we should be familiar with a First Minister who does not answer questions; he certainly did not answer the question that I asked. I did not mention the Scottish Executive cutting funding; that was not what I averred. I asked whether, in the light of the increasing cocaine addiction in Scotland, it makes sense strategically to withdraw or discontinue a resource that has apparently been used to cope with that increase.
Leaving that issue to one side, I find it utterly depressing that drug abuse is scarring communities the length and breadth of the nation. The problem is not just the dozens of new people who seek treatment every day; it is the fact that drug-related crime is soaring. We need to assess what help is available to deal with the growing epidemic. I agree with the First Minister's comment that the important points about facilities are the availability of places and their effectiveness. Will he establish a directory of Scottish drug rehabilitation facilities so that we can quantify what we have got and how many more we need?
Yes. We understand that that directory will be complete by May. That suggestion, which Miss Goldie made in public and during a meeting with the Minister for Justice, and other suggestions that Miss Goldie has made in recent months have been constructive and helpful. We took up her specific suggestion about a directory and I think that the national drugs forum has been given the task of compiling a far more accurate and comprehensive national directory in Scotland.
Like the temperature in the Arctic, we move from one extreme to the other when the First Minister answers questions. I am uplifted, because something positive has at long last been announced. I genuinely pay tribute to the First Minister. Tardiness is an art form for him, but never mind—we have an answer now.
The First Minister referred to what his Executive has endeavoured to invest in rehabilitation facilities. The amount is clearly inadequate, given the extent of the problem that we know is out there. Today, my party pledged to invest an extra £100 million per year in drug rehabilitation facilities. That would be a tremendous investment and the most significant step ever taken in Scotland to deal with drug abuse. As I think that the First Minister knows, estimates show that an investment of £100 million to combat drug abuse with rehabilitation facilities could save up to £1 billion in health care, police and legal costs. Will he join us in acknowledging that we are in danger of losing thousands of our people to drugs, and will he agree that our initiative is a welcome start to addressing that appalling problem?
The Conservatives' conversion is better late than never and I am delighted that they have made that commitment, although, as with any pledge of that sort by the Opposition parties, we need to see the figures and find out where the money will come from.
I repeat that rehabilitation is only one part of the strategy. If we are to tackle drugs in Scotland, we must tackle supply and demand. We must improve rehabilitation—in scale and in quality—but we must also tackle the people who sell drugs. The announcement on Monday by the Minister for Justice about the new national serious crime campus at Gartcosh represents a further step in the right direction. That will boost the work of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and ensure that the agency can continue to achieve improved seizure and conviction rates and, ultimately, get to the people who prey on vulnerable people in Scotland and secure ridiculous riches for themselves as a result.
Tackling supply on one hand and demand on the other should be our national strategy. If we are moving towards a national consensus among the parties, I welcome that.
Cabinet Sub-committee on Sustainable Scotland (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister when the Cabinet sub-committee on sustainable Scotland last met. (S2F-2659)
I will give the member the precise date: the sub-committee last met on 27 June 2006.
The Cabinet sub-committee on sustainable Scotland was supposed to drive change across the Executive, but it is disappointing that it has not met since June. It seems that climate change and sustainability have slipped off the First Minister's agenda. The sub-committee should have provided an opportunity for joined-up thinking across the Executive. Climate change emissions from transport and domestic energy emissions have increased since the First Minister took office. However, there is good news. I welcome the Executive's proposal—
Ask a question, Mr Harper.
Will the First Minister support the screening of "An Inconvenient Truth" on national television and join political leaders in a public debate on climate change immediately after the screening?
I would certainly welcome the showing of the film. This week, we announced an initiative to ensure that it is shown in Scotland's schools and I hope that youngsters in Scotland will learn much from it. I have no doubt that national television companies will want to show the film in due course, whenever they have the rights to do so.
We will not tackle climate change across the world or even here in Scotland by having committee meetings.
I genuinely believe in the work that we have undertaken, particularly in the past year. We have set new targets in Scotland that are more stretching than those in the rest of the United Kingdom and in many other parts of Europe and beyond; we have ensured that we continue with the progress that we have made on key environmental issues such as renewable energy and recycling; and we have ensured that, inside the Executive, we take seriously our own responsibilities and the need to show a lead. Those actions are far more important than any individual sub-committee meeting. However, I can assure Robin Harper—if he believes that it matters all that much—that the sub-committee will meet again in March.
I still ask the First Minister why—if he feels that having committee meetings on the environment is a waste of time—the Executive set up the committee in the first place.
Will the First Minister answer the other question that I put to him? All praise to the First Minister—he has already encouraged schools across Scotland to screen the Al Gore film. Will he now make climate change an urgent priority and a matter of open public debate in the run-up to the election? Will he support the screening of "An Inconvenient Truth" on national television and will he join political leaders in a public debate on climate change immediately afterwards?
I am sure that there will be many matters for debate in the run-up to the election.
For the sake of clarity, I will say that at no time did I say that the sub-committee had been "a waste of time". My point was that holding a committee meeting is not the way to tackle climate change. However, the sub-committee does indeed drive change and assist us inside the organisation—partly because it has such effective external members on it. The sub-committee has had a key role in looking at the Cabinet's policies in relation to sustainable development, in ensuring that sustainability is at the heart of our transport strategy and in ensuring that the Executive's strategy on climate change covers a breadth of policies and is not just narrowly focused.
The sub-committee has driven our progress towards our targets on recycling. When those targets were announced five years ago, they were ridiculed in some quarters. Today we are very close to securing them.
Act of Union (300th Anniversary)
To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Executive is marking the 300th anniversary of the Act of Union. (S2F-2665)
The Executive is supporting a range of events to commemorate the anniversary of the Act of Union. They include book launches and debates by the National Library of Scotland, an exhibition by the National Archives of Scotland, a display of artefacts by the National Museums of Scotland and a display of relevant portraits and new video work by the National Galleries—[Interruption.]
I am interested to hear that some members in the chamber think that our national cultural institutions are there to be mocked. I think that those institutions are there to educate and enlighten us—to teach us about our past as well to inform us for our future. I am very proud that they do so—unlike the members who seem to think that the institutions are in some way a joke. It is those members who are the joke.
The Executive is also supporting, along with this Parliament, a schools competition about the impact of the union. I am sure that Scottish children will benefit from that.
Does the First Minister agree that, 300 years on, and after two sessions of the new Scottish Parliament, the time is now right for a serious debate about the future of Scotland's Parliament? Is he aware that the most popular option for the people of Scotland is neither separation nor stagnation but the option proposed by the Liberal Democrats of giving this Parliament more powers? Those would be the right powers to serve Scotland. Does he agree with the words of Donald Dewar, who said that devolution was not an event but a process? The anniversary of the union is the ideal time to move that process on.
I believe that devolution is a process, but I also believe that it has a purpose—to improve Scotland. We should not be diverted from that by the stagnation that would come not from the status quo but from spending three or four years debating an independence bill, which is what the SNP wants us to do, and from having an uncertain referendum that would affect investment and jobs in Scotland.
I believe that Scotland's future lies not in separation or stagnation, but in education—education and learning to give our population the best possible start in life and the best possible chance in the face of international competition. I am certain that that view is shared by the majority of Scots.
I draw the First Minister's attention to reports from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Save the Children this morning. After 300 years of union and 10 years of a Labour Government, more than half our children in many parts of Scotland are living in dire poverty. In the Craigneuk ward of the First Minister's constituency, 56 per cent of the children are living in dire poverty. Is that part of the union dividend of which he is so proud?
Alex Neil gave us a great slogan—was it "Free by 93"? He should tell us what he thinks of the strategy of his front bench to hide its plans for an independence bill and a referendum and to seek somehow not to make that the issue for the coming election campaign.
The actions of this devolved Government and of the United Kingdom Government over the past 10 years have made a significant difference to child poverty in Scotland. We are leading the way in the UK in tackling child poverty and if members had any soul, they would be proud of that. The reality is that we have lifted more than 100,000 Scottish children out of relative poverty and more than 200,000 of them out of absolute poverty in those years. We know that one in three people in Scotland lived in poverty in 1997, but today only one in four live in poverty, and that figure is coming down year after year.
The way to tackle poverty is to have a Government in the UK that is committed not just to better benefit systems, but to getting people into work and giving them and their families a decent chance in life, and a Parliament here that gives people the skills, the child care and the opportunities that get them and their families into work and which lift children in Scotland out of poverty. Those are the solutions, not the nonsense that we get from the Scottish National Party, which, rather than tackling child poverty and giving people the education that lets them get on in life, wants to waste all its efforts over three or four years on an independence bill and a referendum.
As the constituency successor of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun and a family descendant of another of the 67 members of the old Scottish Parliament who were not bought or sold for English gold, I ask the First Minister to highlight the crucial distinction between the incorporating union of 1707, which abolished Scotland's Parliament, and our new constitutional settlement, which combines home rule in this Parliament with all the benefits of the successful partnership of the United Kingdom. Can he think of words to describe the folly of a party that seeks to tear up a union that now gives Scotland the best of both worlds—home rule and the union dividend? Incidentally, what about the threat to Scotland's security and what about defence jobs?
Briefly, please.
I suspect that the Presiding Officer is thinking that if I took time to answer all those points, I could be here for quite a while.
The key point is that today we in Scotland enjoy the best of both worlds. We have the union dividend from being part of that larger family of the United Kingdom and we also have a devolution dividend that gives us the power to make our own decisions in the Parliament and to drive forward change and progress in Scotland. We have the ability not just to tackle child poverty, but to make our country more prosperous.
As I said earlier this week at the annual event of the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Scotland, we can see what impact the SNP's plans for Scotland would have on just one sector—financial services, which provides 200,000 jobs in Scotland. First, the SNP's plan for independence would break off our financial services companies from their number 1 market, which is south of the border. It would require the creation of a whole new system of regulation and legislation, separate from that which governs the City of London, and would create uncertainty about the currency in an independent Scotland, just as Alex Salmond did earlier this week. He suggested that even if we were independent, at best we would tie our currency to the English pound and let England make all the decisions anyway. That is nonsense for financial services, for the Scottish economy and for Scotland, which is why it will be rejected by the people of Scotland in May.
Private Sector Growth
To ask the First Minister, in light of the growth in the private sector in 2006, what action is being taken to help increase output and competitiveness. (S2F-2657)
We are pleased that recent surveys and independent statistics reports show that Scotland continues to have higher employment and lower unemployment than the rest of the UK and that our gross domestic product growth is now consistently above Scotland's long-term trend rate. Output and competitiveness will be improved by public and, crucially, private investment in infrastructure and research, by commercialising new ideas more effectively and by improving skills.
I welcome the recent surveys and reports. Since 2003, growth has picked up pace, but more still needs to be done to improve the proportion of Scots who are prepared to take a risk and start their own businesses. Although in recent years employment in my constituency and across Fife has gone up to 77 per cent, there are still too few business start-ups. Will the First Minister indicate what will now be done to increase the business start-up rate and say how that work could be threatened by the proposals from some allegedly pro-business political parties to abolish agencies such as Scottish Enterprise?
Although much of what is required needs to be done by individual entrepreneurs and people with their own drive, imagination, energy and skill, there are two main things that the Executive can do in relation to business start-ups.
First, we need to create a better culture of ambition and aspiration among our youngsters, together with an understanding of business and a willingness to take risks. Determined to succeed, our national programme of enterprise education—which is a leading programme not only in the United Kingdom but everywhere else in the world—is changing the culture of Scotland's schools and will change the culture in future generations. That will lead to more business start-ups, more people making a success of their business and more people willing to fail at the first opportunity and try again.
Secondly, we need to have better financial support systems. The stream of financial support—from very small to very large amounts of money—that is being invested in new ideas and enterprise in Scotland is crucial. That is why Scottish Enterprise and the Executive have refined it over recent years. Those who want to cut the Scottish Enterprise budget or to abolish the agency will have to answer for the amount of money that would be taken away from Scottish business as a result in the months ahead.
My apologies to Stewart Stevenson. This is the first time in a long time that we have not reached question 6.
Meeting suspended until 14:15.
On resuming—