Capital Projects
The next item of business is a debate on motion S4M-05653, in the name of Gavin Brown, on capital projects. I remind members that this and the subsequent debate are extremely tight for time. We will keep you closely to your allocated time limit.
14:40
Our objective this afternoon is to have a focused debate on the non-profit-distribution pipeline, a Scottish Government flagship programme that was first announced in November 2010. It is an important subject to debate and is completely devolved. Responsibility for the programme, in terms of its positive results or otherwise, rests in Edinburgh, with the Scottish Government. That is why it is an appropriate subject for us to debate in full this afternoon.
The other reason for bringing the debate to the chamber is that, in our view, some key information about the programme is still absent. We have sought information over a period of months, through committees, through parliamentary questions—at First Minister’s question time on three occasions and at topical question time—and through budget debates, but the Government has yet to divulge some critical information. The debate gives the Scottish Government the chance to explain fully the results of the programme thus far, particularly the results on the ground.
When it responds to the debate, it is important that the Government acknowledges the results on the ground and does not talk incessantly about procurement, business cases and what may happen. It must talk about what has happened on the ground thus far. We want the Government finally to explain the real reasons for the delays.
Notwithstanding the member’s characteristically reasonable tone, would he not like to take the opportunity to apologise to the people of Edinburgh for the excessive private finance initiative charges that mean that before a penny can be spent on education in this city, we pay £30 million in PFI charges?
That was a fairly predictable intervention from a Scottish National Party back bencher. The only surprising aspect was that it took one minute and 56 seconds for Mr Eadie to intervene—about a minute longer than his whip said. That is very disappointing.
Let us hear from the Scottish Government about the lessons that it has learned, so that we can not only acknowledge what has happened but prevent future slippage of the NPD programme, which is to run over the next seven or eight years. I challenge the Scottish Government to use its time in the debate to explain what has happened, rather than to reflect the content of its amendment and simply pile the blame on Westminster. As I said, the NPD pipeline is completely devolved and is the responsibility of this Holyrood Government.
Before Mr Brown proceeds much further in his analysis, will he acknowledge that one of the reasons why the Scottish Government has had to embark on an NPD programme is the 26 per cent reduction in our capital budget made by the United Kingdom Government?
Long before the economic crash, we had PFI and public-private partnerships. At that time, the then wanting-to-be Scottish Government had a not-so-clear plan about what it was going to introduce. NPD was always something that was going to happen and, for decades, it has sat alongside a conventional programme. I hope that, in return, Mr Swinney will acknowledge that his budget will go up next year in cash terms to the tune of £7 million. It is entirely up to him—[Interruption.] If Mr Swinney wishes to intervene again, he may care to stand up. [Interruption.] I will give way in a moment—let me finish the point first. It is entirely in the cabinet secretary’s gift how much of that money he decides to switch to capital. He cannot switch the other way around, but if he is unhappy about the division between revenue and capital, he can switch more from revenue to capital.
Let us consider what was projected at the time of the 2011 spending review.
Will the member give way?
I am happy to.
For completeness, would Mr Brown observe and confirm the fact that the Scottish Government has had its capital budget cut by 26 per cent by the United Kingdom Government?
It has never been denied from this side of the chamber that, over the course of the spending review, the Scottish Government budget has been reduced in real terms. However, as we all know, next year it goes up in cash terms.
The SNP is determined to discuss anything but the NPD programme; it wants to talk about anything and everything, except areas for which it is responsible.
Let us look at the facts. At the time of the 2011 spending review, the Government said that its capital spending would be between £50 million and £150 million in 2011-12, £353 million in 2012-13 and £686 million in 2013-14. What happened on the ground in 2011-12 was precisely nothing; the spending in 2012-13, we are told, will be £20 million, instead of £353 million; and the latest spend projections for the next financial year are £338 million instead of £686 million.
The Parliament and the country deserve an explanation. Initially, when it was clear that the Government had overpromised and underdelivered, its strategy was simply not to mention it in the budget or anywhere else. It said in the budget that it was accelerating the NPD pipeline; it did not admit that it was being decelerated. It said that the pipeline was so good that everyone else around the world wanted to copy what it was doing.
They also said that the figures were different because of a variance. However, when a Government says that it will spend £353 million and only delivers £20 million, that is stretching the definition of variance to quite a degree.
Since the Government has finally had to confront the issue, we have had numerous excuses for it. At First Minister’s question time, the First Minister—at least twice—said that it was the fault of the Aberdeen western peripheral route. However, when we got the Government’s official document about the forecast profile, it was clear that money was not projected to be spent on the Aberdeen western peripheral route until 2013-14. That does not explain the situation in 2011-12 or 2012-13, even by a penny.
Then it was the fault of the Edinburgh sick kids hospital, which the Government said was a big project that had been delayed for a number of reasons. However, when we got the Government’s official paper, money was not projected to be spent on that until 2014-15. That does not explain the position either.
Then we had a partially true excuse: the Government said that it was all down to the Borders rail link, because that project is worth more than £300 million and that explains the difference. However, when we got the Government’s official paperwork, we saw that there was no spend on the Borders rail link in 2011-12 and that it accounts for £39 million out of the £353 million in the current financial year. None of those excuses explains the situation at all.
We move then from the incorrect to the inept. When the Scottish Government was asked for a list of projects that had been delivered, the First Minister stood up in the chamber and reeled off a list of 20 projects that had not been delivered—in most cases they had not even been started.
We heard from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities at topical question time the reason given for the delays:
“These are large, complex projects that are being procured by a wide range of procuring authorities.”
Those were always “large, complex projects”; they were always
“being procured by a wide range of procuring authorities.”
We also heard from the Deputy First Minister that they are delayed because time was taken up on
“the preparation and design stages”.—[Official Report, 5 February 2013; c 16357.]
That was always going to be the case: with any construction project in the history of the world, there is a preparation and a design stage.
We now know which broad areas were held up. We know that the areas in which there were delays and in which projects failed to happen this year—to which none of the excuses that have previously been given apply—were community health, to the tune of £84 million; colleges, to the tune of £65 million; schools, to the tune of £119 million; and roads, to the tune of £27 million.
You must bring your remarks to a close.
We ask the Government to publish the list for the year before, to explain why so little has been delivered thus far and why little will be delivered next year, and to give us a guarantee that the latest projections for this year and next will be delivered in full.
I move,
That the Parliament notes the Scottish Government’s claim that every £100 million spent on capital investment supports around 1,400 jobs; is therefore extremely disappointed with the result so far of the non-profit distribution (NPD) pipeline, which delivered nothing on the ground in 2011-12 and is projected to deliver only £20 million on the ground in 2012-13, compared with the £353 million projected in the 2011 spending review; is wholly unconvinced by the reasons given for delay thus far by the Scottish Government; calls on the Scottish Government to publish immediately the complete high-level overview for 2011-12, to explain in detail why the delivery of the NPD pipeline has been weak in 2012-13 and why the current projection for 2013-14 is far lower than was predicted in the 2011 spending review, and further calls on the Scottish Government to give an assurance that the current projections for 2012-13 and 2013-14 will be either met or exceeded.
Let that be an example to everyone—Mr Brown finished bang on time.
14:50
I welcome the debate, not least because it gives me the opportunity to outline the progress that the Scottish Government is making in our capital programme in general and the NPD programme in particular.
I think that we can all agree that infrastructure investment is fundamental to delivering sustainable economic growth, which makes it all the more galling that the Tories are slashing our capital budget. The bare-faced cheek of the Tories—who are slashing our capital budget—in coming to the chamber to lecture this Government on capital investment will not be lost on anyone anywhere in Scotland.
Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?
If the member lets me make a bit of progress, I will give way in a moment.
It is because we believe that capital investment is fundamental that we published the revised infrastructure investment plan in December 2011, in which we set out our priorities for investment and our long-term strategy for the development of public infrastructure. That plan sets out why we invest, how we invest and what we will invest in from now until 2030.
Earlier this month, we published a report on the progress that has been made, sector by sector, since the publication of the revised plan just over a year ago. We announced newly updated and more detailed investment pipelines that contain 30 major programmes and more than 100 individual live projects, which we will continue to update regularly.
The progress report outlined that, during 2012, nine of the major infrastructure projects that were included in the infrastructure investment plan, which have a value of more than £600 million, have been completed and are now in use. Gavin Brown did not see fit to mention that. He would surely have done so if he was at all interested in the reality on the ground.
Just for clarity, how many of the NPD projects were delivered on the ground in 2012?
I am coming on to the NPD programme.
Does Willie Rennie still want to intervene?
I am intrigued by the cabinet secretary’s UK Government angle. Is she saying that the UK Government forced the Scottish Government to mishandle the NPD programme?
The UK Government, of which Willie Rennie’s party seems to be a proud member, slashed this Government’s capital budget by 26 per cent. If Willie Rennie cannot understand the implications of that, I suggest that he go back to the drawing board and do a bit more research.
Despite those savage cuts to our capital budgets by Westminster, we are maximising our capital spending to support infrastructure investment and jobs. Over the three-year period from this year to 2014-15, we will support investment of more than £10 billion through our capital budget, the NPD pipeline and rail investment through the regulatory asset base, and by switching more than £700 million from resource to capital. The £3.1 billion of capital investment in this year is estimated to support 40,000 jobs across the economy. That figure will rise to £3.4 billion next year, when several projects are expected to be completed and become operational, including the Aberdeen community health and care village, Lasswade and Eastwood high schools and Glasgow School of Art estate development.
We expect significant progress to be made on the NPD programme in 2013-14, with major projects such as the Dumfries and Galloway royal infirmary entering procurement, and others such as Inverness College and City of Glasgow College moving into construction. Taking forward a substantial programme of NPD investment—which I remind the chamber is worth £2.5 billion—is part of this Government’s approach to mitigating the impact of the cuts to our capital budget.
I will respond to some of the points in the Conservative motion. As we have made abundantly clear, there has been a reprofiling of investment compared with the 2012-13 forecast. How do the Tories know that? Because of the transparency with which this Government has made the information available. The high-level estimate of the profile of capital investment was provided to the Finance Committee in January 2011 and a similar profile included in a graph in the draft budget for 2012-13, based on early estimates prepared by the Scottish Futures Trust.
There is a range of reasons for the changes in timing. Gavin Brown might find it inconvenient, but the fact is that 50 complex projects are being taken forward by 30 procuring authorities. Significant work has been undertaken with these many authorities to develop each project and the updated profile of capital investment reflects the more detailed level of scrutiny and planning.
In his opening remarks, Gavin Brown seemed to suggest that we should somehow ignore business case planning and procurement processes. Perhaps it is that kind of irresponsibility that has characterised decisions made at Westminster by those on the Opposition benches here. The fact is that, as Infrastructure UK’s 2010 cost review pointed out, time taken now to prepare projects thoroughly will deliver better value for money overall, through a fuller consideration of opportunities for joined-up asset planning; better building efficiency leading to cost savings; clearly specified projects allowing faster procurement than has previously been the case; and appropriate blending of funding to de-risk projects and make them more deliverable. As I have indicated—and am happy to indicate again today—progress is speeding up significantly as a result of that careful preparatory work.
Here is another fact that the Tories do not like to hear: the estimated total value of NPD projects that have already entered procurement or have entered development through hub is around £1.6 billion. The first NPD health project is already in construction and will be completed in 2013. Inverness, Glasgow and Kilmarnock colleges, along with the M8, M73, and M74 motorway improvements and a range of smaller community health and schools projects, will move into construction over the course of this year. The reality is that the Government is making significant progress, despite the cuts that have been made by the Tories and which were first planned by the previous Labour Government. Of course, if we had the full powers of independence and full borrowing powers, we could do even more.
I move amendment S4M-05653.2, to leave out from “notes” to end and insert:
“notes that the UK Government has cut the Scottish Government’s capital budget by 26% in real terms over the UK spending review period and that the previous UK administration was planning an even tougher cash-terms cut of 43% in UK public sector net investment; welcomes the progress made since publication of the Infrastructure Investment Plan in December 2011, with nine major projects now operational and publication of an updated, transparent, pipeline of future Scottish Government investments to assist the construction industry with its forward planning; recognises that, despite the reduction in capital departmental expenditure limits (DEL) from the UK Government, the Scottish Government is on track to invest £3.1 billion this year, using innovative means to supplement capital budgets, including through the Non-Profit Distributing (NPD) programme and switching resource to capital; believes that time invested now in preparing NPD and hub projects for the market leads to improved value for money, and welcomes the progress on Inverness, Glasgow and Kilmarnock colleges and the M8, M73, and M74 motorway improvements, all of which start construction in 2013-14, along with a range of smaller community health and schools projects.”
14:57
Mr Brown has brought a very important debate to the chamber, given ministers’ repeated comments of how crucial their NPD programme is to their economic strategy for creating jobs and stimulating growth. We have agreed with the Scottish Government that the cut to capital budgets has been too steep and fast and has threatened our economic prospects, but ministers have been quite wrong in their description of the previous UK Labour Government’s spending plans on infrastructure. We planned to spend more—
In the previous UK Government’s final budget in March 2010, public sector net investment was forecast to fall in cash terms from £40 billion in 2010-11 to £23 billion in 2014-15. Under the current UK Government’s plans, that investment would fall from £38 billion to £26 billion. Which part of slash and burn does Mr Baker not associate himself with?
Mr Swinney is making a similar claim to that of George Osborne. According to Channel 4 FactCheck, latest Office of National Statistics figures show that Mr Osborne’s claim to have spent more on infrastructure than Labour planned to spend is wrong. In fact, the coalition has spent £4.7 billion less than Labour said it intended to spend.
However, where we agree with the Conservatives is that Mr Swinney is completely wrong about not only the facts of this debate, but his ramshackle description of NPD and the failure to deliver on what has been called an important programme. If every £100 million of investment in this pipeline is worth 1,400 jobs, how many job opportunities have been lost in the past year because of the delays to these projects at the very time when those jobs are needed most? We have been told that the new NPD scheme would be transformational from the old PFI/PPP schemes. In some ways, it has been; at least under the old scheme, projects were delivered.
There may have been a slip of the tongue by Murdo Fraser in the budget debate the other week, but he got it right when he referred to the “NDP”—the non-delivery profit—programme, because the reality is that, while the projects are delayed, investors are still making a profit. [Interruption.]
Order, Mr Swinney.
Indeed, the Scottish Futures Trust won an award in the 2012 public-private partnerships awards as the best PPP promoter. I have not seen the shortlist for this year’s awards, but on the evidence for this debate, I imagine that that achievement will not be repeated.
Let us be clear. The culpability is with ministers, who have promised shovel-ready projects again and again, but have created the policy context that has ensured that there has been a lack of focus on their delivery. The key issue now is that ministers must act to ensure that there are no further delays to those crucial projects.
I am sure that, throughout the debate, members across the chamber will talk about projects in their own areas. North East Scotland members have received an excellent briefing from Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce on the acute need for progress to be made on the AWPR now that the legal challenge is over, and on other projects, including the Haudagain roundabout, which ministers have dithered over for far too long. It is also vital that ministers can demonstrate that they can deliver through NPD the necessary funds for those projects, particularly in light of the experience of Borders rail. A funding partner could not be found for that NPD proposal.
Our amendment also points to the specific issue of the lack of progress in the schools programme, in which, last year, £119 million was meant to be spent, but the final spending tally was zero. We want to know what dialogue there has been with local authorities on the impact that that has had on local educational goals.
Does Richard Baker not know that the schools for the future programme is governed by a national programme board, which includes representatives from local government; that that board meets quarterly; and that progress on the programme is discussed in that forum? Did he not know that when he lodged his amendment?
Will the cabinet secretary therefore tell us the result of that dialogue and what the impact on local educational goals has been of the Scottish Government’s complete failure to deliver its programme of spending on schools through NPD?
Earlier, the cabinet secretary talked about the transparency of the Scottish Government. We have lodged many questions on and asked for many details of the reasons for the delays in each project, and those requests have been blanked every single time. The idea that the Government has been transparent on the issue is simply laughable.
We need to understand why there has been a systemic failure in the delivery of the projects and what specific issues there have been so that we can better understand how they will be resolved. It is because we agree that the programme is crucial and important to boosting our economy that we need ministers to ensure that the mistakes are not repeated. I hope that they can reassure us on those concerns, but at this point our concerns very much remain. We are not persuaded that ministers are taking the necessary action to ensure that the projects move forward as they should. We will not support the Scottish Government’s amendment, but we will support the motion.
I move amendment S4M-05653.1, to insert at end:
“, and calls on the Scottish Government to detail what discussions it has had with local authorities and communities about the impact of the delay of key capital projects, including schools, given that the projected £119 million investment for 2012-13 has been revised to zero.”
Speeches should be up to four minutes, please. We are very tight for time.
15:03
I think that most of us would agree that capital spending is an extremely good thing and that spending on housing in particular has many benefits beyond the building of houses. Such spending helps jobs, provides better-quality homes, less fuel poverty and better health and education opportunities. However, the reality is that we still have to work within certain constraints, not the least of which is the lack of available funds because of mistakes that have been made down south. We do not have the borrowing powers, but even if we did have them, we must require value for money. We still have to pay back the money that we borrow.
We must be clear that the NPD model is different from the traditional funding model and causes extra complications. In the traditional model, funds can be moved around. If one project is going a bit slower, money can be moved to a project that can go a bit quicker. There have been examples of that in recent years. Money that was made available for the sleeper programme was temporarily moved into Scottish Water and switched back later. We do not have that flexibility with NPD. If a project is being held up and cannot move forward as quickly as we would like it to, that means that it will be slowed down and the funding cannot be switched elsewhere.
However, we must remember that we want value for money. There is a temptation for some to say, “Well, we just want to spend money even if it’s not producing what we need.” A good example of that has been the Edinburgh to Glasgow rail improvement project. The plan was to increase capacity by increasing the number of coaches from four trains an hour with six coaches—that is, 24 coaches—to six trains an hour with six coaches, which would cost £1,000 million. However, the Jacobs report then showed us that for £650 million we could increase capacity to 32 coaches an hour—that is, four trains with eight coaches each. I understand that that is still being explored, but it is an example of how we should use money better. Spending £1,000 million is not always better than spending £650 million, if we spend the latter amount wisely.
All the different funding methods must ultimately be paid for. Models such as PFI and PPP were so attractive because the borrowing did not appear on the balance sheet. However, it was still expensive borrowing, which has to be paid back. As has been said, one reason why we are suffering financially now is that we have to spend so much on PFI repayments.
The Finance Committee has been looking at preventative spending, to which I think all parties are signed up. In that regard, we are looking at what we get out of the system rather than just the amount of money or effort that we put in. At a local level, I am positive about the Scottish Government’s investment in the east end of Glasgow, which I think everybody agrees is one of the needier parts of Scotland. In particular, there are projects around the Commonwealth games, some of which have already been completed, such as the Emirates arena, while others are being built—for example, Tollcross pool, the hockey centre and the games village, which of course will become social rented housing after the games.
I very much welcome the recent announcement of £16 million through Clyde Gateway for a further office development on the Clyde, which will have the benefit of bringing more investment in to the area. In the past, we have seen many superficial improvements in Glasgow; we want real improvements now. I am delighted that the George Square plans have been dropped and I hope that something better will happen there.
Westminster should have spent more to counteract the recession and I welcome the Scottish Government’s capital expenditure, whether through traditional funding or NPD. I urge the Government to stick to its guns and ensure that the money is spent properly and wisely.
15:07
For the avoidance of doubt, I make it clear that I will vote for the Labour amendment.
Often when we debate capital spend in the chamber, we find ourselves discussing the mismatch between what the Government would like to spend its money on and what it can realistically budget for. However, that is not all that we are discussing today, because the Scottish budget is under severe pressure in both resource departmental expenditure limit and capital. The austerity measures imposed by the UK Treasury are excessive and are sucking the life out of the Scottish and UK economies. Most parties in the chamber, though not all, believe that the chancellor has got it wrong, that it is time for another fiscal stimulus and that a renewed push for growth is long overdue. There was a welcome boost for capital projects from the autumn statement, but public spending on capital remains diminished. Therefore, if the Scottish Government wants to meet its ambitions for infrastructure, it will have to look beyond public budgets.
Frankly, the Scottish Government finds itself in the same position as previous Administrations in Holyrood and at Westminster, or as so many of our local authorities during the Thatcher era, because it must leverage private sector investment into public works if it is to have the slightest chance of realising its ambitions. That is precisely why NPD, just like all the other public-private partnerships that we have known over the years, is so critical.
If I can communicate anything to members today, it will be to stress the urgency of the need for capital investment and job creation in the economy, and the on-going importance of the NPD pipeline. Be in no doubt that the business community will have been watching the infrastructure investment plan and the NPD pipeline, and that some parts of it will be listening to the minister’s remarks today. I am afraid that what we have heard in the chamber will not have reassured the business community or construction firms that Scottish ministers understand the urgency of the calls for investment, or that they are developing the shovel-ready pipeline that we have been promised. I do not think that we have heard a single convincing reason for the NPD pipeline delivering so little, given that we were promised so much.
I started by saying that today’s debate is about more than the mismatch between what the Government wants to do and what it can do within its budget; it is about the mismatch between what the Scottish Government can budget for and what is actually being spent and delivered. We were promised that £353 million would be invested in NPD projects in 2012-13, but the figure turned out to be £20 million. We were told that £686 million would be invested in NPD projects in 2013-14, but the recent budget confirmed that plans have been scaled back to £338 million.
When the Finance Committee asked for an explanation for that reduction, it was told that it was taking longer than anticipated to develop projects and proceed to procurement. When will the proposed procurement reform bill become an act? The Scottish economy does not have a great deal to gain from taking projects out of development hell just to pass them into a protracted and cumbersome public procurement framework. I remind members that Michael Levack, from the Scottish Building Federation, told the Finance Committee that too many capital projects are
“stuck in the constipated public sector procurement system”.—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 26 September 2012; c 1618.]
If the procurement reform bill is to make a substantial difference to Scottish businesses it must be introduced in the Parliament without further delay, so that we can legislate to unclog the system.
15:11
The Tory motion is a tale of two parties—the Scottish Conservatives against not the Scottish National Party but the UK Conservatives. There are different views on capital projects in Scotland and England.
In Scotland, the Tories complain that we are not spending enough or are failing to spend money that has been set aside. Everyone but the Tories knows that procurement can take time. Placing or setting up a contract takes time and there can be slippage or delay due to legal challenges. I know from a previous life how long it takes for contracts to come to fruition.
When money is set aside for a particular purpose it cannot be spent twice, although Tory and Labour members think that that can be done and often suggest that. If money were moved to another project, I am sure that Opposition parties would demand to know why it was being spent elsewhere. They cannot have their cake and eat it.
In Scotland, the SNP has ensured that capital investment programmes are on course to spend £3.1 billion and support more than 40,000 jobs. The SNP has consistently called for increased capital investment from Westminster following unprecedented cuts to our capital budget. Through the cabinet secretary we have switched £700 million from resource to the capital budget, to support capital investment.
Why have the Scottish Tories failed at every turn to support our calls for increased capital investment? Will the Tories admit that the austerity agenda is not working and that the Westminster coalition cut capital spending too far and too fast, as we have said all along?
London mayor Mr Boris Johnson called on the Treasury and the Bank of England to end their relentless focus on austerity and boost investment in new homes and infrastructure. Johnson said that it was time to
“junk the rhetoric of austerity”
and instead take steps to boost confidence and spending. Lib Dem leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, too, has admitted that the coalition cut capital spending too far and too fast.
The Scottish Tories would do well to acknowledge that their Westminster Tory colleagues, in partnership with the Lib Dems, have cut Scotland’s capital budget. The SNP and the Scottish Government campaigned solidly for two years for the reversal of the cuts. The Scottish Tories claim to understand the importance of capital spending, so why do they refuse to support our calls for a boost to the capital budget?
Projects that are planned in Scotland include NHS Lothian’s Royal hospital for sick kids and redevelopment of the Royal Edinburgh hospital, the Borders railway, the Forth replacement crossing, the Parliament House redevelopment and the Wester Hailes healthy living centre. In Glasgow, planned projects include City of Glasgow College, the M8, M73 and M74 improvements and the M8 Baillieston to Newhouse scheme, in my region, which I welcome and which is in procurement. There is also the Edinburgh to Glasgow rail improvement programme.
Projects in construction include the new South Glasgow hospitals and laboratory and Glasgow School of Art. There is also the modernisation of Glasgow’s subway. I could go on and on.
In England, the Tories have scrapped or suspended projects worth £10.5 billion. Michael Gove cut building for schools in six local authorities and was taken to court, where the judge said that the failure was
“so unfair as to amount to an abuse of power”.
Leaked Treasury documents revealed that George Osborne has anticipated that tighter spending will lead to 1.3 million jobs being lost over the years.
If members are looking for a top gloomy fact with which to impress their friends, they could do worse than point out that the squeeze in public finances in 2012-13 is larger than in either of the first two years of the coalition. I support the SNP amendment.
15:15
I once had fears, when I entered this Parliament, that the SNP masses on the back benches would never hold their ministers to account. After that contribution, my fears can be laid to rest. There is no doubt that Richard Lyle put John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon right up on the rack. They are now scrutinised; they now fear their back benchers, who are doing the job that I feared they would never do. I commend Richard Lyle for his contribution.
However, I feel a little bit sorry for Nicola Sturgeon these days.
Oh!
I know; I never thought that members would hear that from me. Her particular job was handed on by Alex Neil, who I do not see in the chamber this afternoon—at least John Swinney has the ability and nerve to turn up and answer for the decisions that he has made.
I have a bit of advice for Nicola Sturgeon, because there seems to be a bit of a trend. If the boys offer her a new job in the near future, I would think twice before accepting it. The independence campaign is another indication perhaps of a job that I am sure that Nicola Sturgeon would rather not have accepted.
I am sure that the Government would accept that, in the past, it has said that it could be tremendously proud of being on time and on budget. I do not think we will hear that any more, even from Richard Lyle. Only the SNP could claim success out of failure by saying that it now takes pride in simply reprofiling a programme on time.
This Government is an expert on every other Government, but never on itself. That is certainly an indication—it may not be the first—that this Government is too focused on its obsession with independence to focus on the issues that really matter, which are about creating jobs and opportunities.
Will the member give way?
Not just now.
All the issues in this afternoon’s debate are devolved, but all we hear about from the ministers is what is happening somewhere else: “Let’s blame somewhere else.” Well, the UK Government never forced the Scottish Government to make a cock-up of its NPD programme.
Will the member give way?
No, not just now.
John Swinney has lectured us in previous debates for being ignorant and not recognising that capital project programmes are very difficult to deliver. He said:
“Anybody who tries to suggest anything different is not confronting the reality of some of the circumstances”.—[Official Report, 20 December 2012; c 15071.]
I presume that he recognised that reality back in 2010, when he boasted about the massive programme, about which Alex Neil had previously said:
“These projects will energise our economy and deliver a legacy of infrastructure assets.”
I presume that the SNP knew that at the time. I presume that it had confronted reality back in 2010. However, suddenly now anyone who suggests that it has not managed the programme properly is not confronting reality. The SNP needs to confront reality and admit its mistakes. To say that it has been transparent is very far from reality.
How did he get all this information? I thought that it was a secret.
Order.
What we face here is a promise that the SNP would deliver £353 million. It has delivered £20 million. As Gavin Brown rightly said, the SNP said that £100 million would deliver 1,400 jobs. We have £20 million out of £353 million, so I estimate that the SNP has failed to deliver 4,500 jobs—that is the impact of the SNP’s mishandling. The SNP should reflect on its own abilities rather than criticise anyone.
15:19
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate. The issue is important not only for members but to the Scottish public, as we can see if we look at the wide extent of capital projects from broadband improvements, to national health service buildings, schools and transport infrastructure. As well as creating jobs in the economy now, those projects create a better, stronger infrastructure for Scotland’s future and lay the foundations for long-term success.
I note that the Conservative motion seems to accept the Scottish Government’s figure of 1,400 jobs being created from every £100 million of capital investment. If that is the case, perhaps the Scottish Conservatives can highlight it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and encourage the coalition to change its policies to support the economy rather than attempting to hamper it.
Perhaps Gavin Brown could also confirm whether he, like David Mundell MP, believes that Scotland was extinguished after the treaty of union. It seems strange to discuss the capital expenditure of a country that, in the eyes of the Tories, has been extinguished and has ceased to be—a country that is no more. Perhaps they took their lines from Monty Python. It is another strange situation from the Scottish Conservatives.
Yet again, we are discussing a Conservative motion on Scotland’s—or North Britain’s—capital projects. It is a motion from a party that, not content with having the double cross on its emblem, is foisting the bedroom tax upon Scotland. Where will all the one-bedroom properties come from before 1 April? Where is the Conservatives’ capital plan for new public sector house building?
During the recent budget debate, we heard more rhetoric from the Labour Party with little reasoning and little suggestion of where the money would come from to build the one-bedroom properties before 1 April. Today’s debate seems to highlight that the Tories are of the same mind. “Better together,” they say.
The updated infrastructure investment plan demonstrates exactly how the Scottish Government has invested, and will invest, in capital projects that will benefit communities throughout Scotland despite the 26 per cent cuts in its capital budgets. Various projects have already been delivered in my West Scotland region. The Renfrew and Barrhead health centres have been completed, as have the Paisley rail corridor improvements, and the first of two hybrid ferries has been launched at Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd in Port Glasgow. Those are a few examples of investment that the Scottish Government has already made.
Infrastructure investment is fundamental to delivering sustainable economic growth by supporting jobs through the construction phase and then, once the infrastructure is in use, enabling businesses to grow.
When we consider the role of the NPD model, it is important to remind ourselves of where we came from: the disastrous PFI schemes that were initially developed by the Conservatives and taken to the extreme by Labour. In local government alone, PFI debts have reached the staggering figure of more than £13 billion—more than the annual funding allocation to local councils. In Inverclyde, we see schools to the capital value of £80 million costing £312 million, while in neighbouring Renfrewshire schools with a capital value of £110 million have been transformed into a debt of £538 million.
Even Labour MPs such as Margaret Hodge are now realising their mistake, stating:
“The irony is that we privatised the buildings but nationalised the debts. It’s crazy.”
Is that sentiment shared by the Tories’ not-so-secret weapon in Scotland—their friends in the Scottish Labour Party—or is Scottish Labour too busy providing the human shield for the Tories, who are determined to keep Scotland constrained within its current powers? Judging by John Swinney’s intervention on Richard Baker earlier, that certainly still seems to be the case.
With a yes vote in 2014 and the full powers of independence, we could do much more. We would not have to rely on the block grants from London, which are being cut. I certainly hope that, in 2014, the people of Scotland will vote yes to make the infrastructure programme in Scotland a damn sight better than it is now.
15:23
As the cabinet secretary pointed out in her opening speech, earlier this month the Scottish Government published a so-called progress report on a range of infrastructure projects along with a wish list of new proposals for the coming decade. The timescales of numerous schemes have slipped since last year, while others are coming in tens of millions of pounds over budget. In the Government’s updated programme pipeline, a range of initiatives were unveiled with no indication of when they will be delivered or how they will ever be paid for.
I will look at some of the projects that are in the document. The Aberdeen western peripheral route, which was previously estimated to cost as little as £295 million, is now estimated to cost more than £650 million. The A90 upgrade between Balmedie and Tipperty, which was formerly projected to cost between £53 million and £63 million, is now forecast to cost £92 million. Improvements to the M8, the M73 and the M74 are now estimated to cost £415 million, compared with a £280 million estimate last year.
Those figures were announced after weeks of scrutiny from the Scottish Conservatives over why the Government had failed to deliver £480 million of NPD construction projects in the past two years. Alex Salmond boasted that he would spend £350 million in the current financial year, but just £20 million has been spent. In the previous year, he boasted that he would spend £150 million, but nothing was spent. When Ruth Davidson challenged him in the chamber to list the projects that NPD had achieved, he gave us a list of 20 projects, not one of which had been delivered.
The Government’s figures suggest that the failure to deliver the £480 million of construction projects could already have cost Scotland tens of thousands of jobs. What was produced was not a progress report but a lack of progress report. We were given a list of schemes that are running over budget or behind schedule, followed by a new list of projects, with no detail on where the money would come from. The nationalist Government might think that announcing the new projects will act as a bribe to voters ahead of the separation referendum in 2014, but the Scottish people can see right through that.
It is bad enough that the Government has failed spectacularly on delivering its NPD schemes and has spent only £20 million of the nearly £500 million that was promised. Now we see a list of other projects that are running the same way.
We have heard time and again in the debate that the Government has suffered from capital reductions that have been passed on from the south, but we must take the opportunity to compare those capital cuts with the Scottish Government’s behaviour in relation to its own capital projects and its failure to deliver through NPD.
Will Alex Johnstone take an intervention?
Alex Johnstone is in his last minute.
The repeated argument that organising such things takes time is wearing extremely thin. When only £20 million has been spent in the past two years, we have come to the point when we must address the Government’s failures.
The SNP complains about cuts in capital funding, but it is failing to deliver at its own level. The NPD projects have not been delivered, and we need an explanation from the Government for why its policy has failed miserably.
15:28
Investment in capital projects matters everywhere, and nowhere more than in Aberdeen and the north-east. Aberdeen is the most successful city of its size anywhere in the UK and it is currently the best place in Britain in which to find a job. In the next financial year, Aberdeen City Council will become the first council ever to raise more in business rates than it gets in Government grants.
Aberdeen and the north-east are best placed to lead the country on the road to recovery and growth, but weaknesses in the area’s infrastructure still constrain its economic potential. It is more than 10 years since Jack McConnell announced the devolved Government’s support for the western peripheral route, at an Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce conference in January 2003. It is very nearly six years since the SNP was elected and became responsible for delivering that project.
To date, little has been delivered on the ground. Preliminary work has finally got under way, in the current financial year, largely because Aberdeen City Council and Aberdeenshire Council could meet the up-front costs. Despite the long lead-in to getting started, the AWPR is still largely missing from the Scottish Government’s spending plans for the next financial year.
A business community that is frustrated by years of delay is—understandably—anxious to see evidence of investment coming forward, especially given that NPD is an unproven funding mechanism for infrastructure projects of such a scale. When Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce surveyed its members during north-east business week last year, 87 per cent identified the AWPR as a key infrastructure investment that would drive growth. That is why the chamber of commerce is calling this week for
“publication of the full business case for the AWPR, in the interests of transparency, to ensure that the full funding package is in place.”
I ask the Scottish Government to agree today to publication of the detailed business case for the AWPR and a full timetable for delivery of the Balmedie to Tipperty and airport sections of the project in particular.
I also agree with the chamber of commerce in its call for “urgent progress” to be made on delivering improvements to the Haudagain roundabout. I ask for a clear commitment today to a date on which that work will begin.
Labour’s amendment rightly highlights community engagement in the delivery of capital projects. On 20 December, the third Don crossing was raised in the chamber, and Nicola Sturgeon agreed with me that councils should always take local opinion into account. She said:
“Such considerations are first and foremost for local communities, balancing the needs of the economy and regeneration with the interests of individual communities.”—[Official Report, 20 December 2012; c 15022.]
If almost everyone in Aberdeen is for the AWPR and improvements to the Haudagain, almost everyone in Tillydrone is against a third Don crossing being built in that community.
The member might be aware, although he does not seem to be, that there was a legal case against the starting of the AWPR. Can he tell us what Labour would have done differently to bring that forward?
Perhaps I might not have offered that the Scottish Government would pay the legal costs of the objector on one occasion, and perhaps I might have—[Interruption.]
Order.
Perhaps I might have taken a different approach to the planning inquiry. It is interesting that Mr Swinney in particular is so extremely sensitive to criticism of the delay in the project, which has happened on the Government’s watch.
Will the member take an intervention?
The member is in his final minute.
In spite of the objections of so many people to the building of a third Don crossing in Tillydrone, a majority of councillors, including members of the SNP, voted to build it regardless. Nicola Sturgeon’s comments on the importance of local opinion were noted at a public meeting in Tillydrone last week and I agreed to pass on an invitation from the local community for her to come to Aberdeen to hear people’s views. I hope that she will take up that invitation and that she will convey the views of local people to others in her party.
I regret that you must close, Mr Macdonald.
In that way, Nicola Sturgeon will hear for herself what local people really think about spending priorities, and she will perhaps conclude that those projects that have public support—
You must close.
—are the ones that should be delivered without further delay.
15:32
I must say that I was taken aback by the Tories’ temerity in bringing to the chamber a debate on capital spending at the same time as their Westminster colleagues are cutting this Parliament’s capital budget by 26 per cent in real terms. However, without a trace of irony, Conservative members have today attacked the Scottish Government’s record on infrastructure development and capital projects. It really is quite unbelievable. Considering that the SNP is the only party in the Parliament to have recognised the importance of maintaining capital budgets in growing the economy out of recession and that it has made real efforts to boost capital spending, the Tory hypocrisy and that of their Lib Dem lapdogs is frankly staggering.
Of course, while it is easy to point the finger of blame at the Tories, who, for ideological reasons, seem to enjoy cutting Government spending, we must remember that we had the misfortune to have an inept Westminster Labour Government whose chancellor promised cuts that were “deeper and tougher” than those of Margaret Thatcher. Alistair Darling, who has now been reborn as the public face of the let’s hold Scotland back campaign, and his colleagues are clearly complicit in the economic mire that the UK is in today. The irony of the Labour and Tory bitter together partners criticising the Scottish Government on capital spending will not be lost.
Gavin Brown questions the success of the NPD model and rejects explanations as to why there has been some delay in delivery. However, at the Finance Committee’s meeting on 16 January, Mr Brown was offered a comprehensive explanation by both Barry White and Peter Reekie of the Scottish Futures Trust, who went into some detail on some of the difficulties that have been encountered and how things have been improved in recent months.
At that meeting, Mr White explained, and I quote—
Will the member take an intervention?
Can I at least quote Mr White first, before I give active consideration to whether or not I will take an intervention?
Mr White explained:
“It has always been understood that NPD financing is different in nature to capital financing and follows the progress of a project. An example is the Aberdeen western peripheral route”—
about which we have heard much this afternoon—
“which went through a lengthy legal process. In capital financing, if a project is held up in a legal process, the funding can be switched to and spent on other projects; however, in NPD financing, the money is allocated to a specific project and is not interchangeable in that kind of way.”—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 16 January 2013; c 2043.]
Mr White also explained that often lengthy procurement processes—which are being significantly shortened, incidentally, to just under 18 months on average—can impact on delivery timetables. He pointed to the example that the need to renegotiate PFI contracts at the Royal hospital for sick children in Edinburgh led to significant delays.
The member says that procurement is significantly shorter than expected. Can he explain why construction on the ground has not happened?
Mr White said that procurement is being significantly shortened. Incidentally, he also said that the money to be spent through NPD would be £200 million more in the financial year 2014-15 than was originally estimated—the Tories seem to have missed that out in their deliberations.
Of course, if we look at the alternative methods pursued by both the Tory and Labour Governments to supplement capital spending—Tory PFI and its rebranded new Labour twin, PPP—we see that those failed policies hung a millstone in the form of billions of pounds of debt around the necks of NHS boards, local authorities and future generations of taxpayers.
In recent years, North Ayrshire Council—until last year it was under Labour control, but it is now SNP, I am pleased to say—built four secondary schools with a capital value of £83 million. However, due to the PFI/PPP model that was pursued, taxpayers will fork out £400 million over the next 30 years. That profligacy meant that last year North Ayrshire Council spent £11 million on PFI payments—a figure that will rise year on year to £16.6 million in 2037. It is the equivalent of someone buying a modest £83,000 flat and then paying a horrendously expensive rent of £1,111 a month for 30 years. I say “rent” because the property would not even be their own after those 30 years.
Given their shameful records, it beggars belief that the Tories and Labour criticise the NPD model—a model in which profits are capped and surpluses are directed to the public sector.
This Government has shown its commitment to boosting capital spending and has long been ahead of the curve in recognising its importance to growing the economy and creating jobs.
15:36
This has been a useful debate in illuminating the failure of the Scottish Government to deliver on its promises to invest in Scotland’s infrastructure through its much trumpeted Scottish Futures Trust.
The SNP Government deploys two principal arguments. The first, of course, is that everything bad that happens is Westminster’s fault. The current UK Government has been doing many things that I do not like—that is one of the reasons why I will be campaigning for a change in Government in 2015. However, I do not think that we can put every terrible disaster at Westminster’s door.
The second argument that is deployed by SNP Government is that assertion trumps evidence, because if it says something, it must be true, however contrary the evidence. If it says that it has delivered projects, it has, even if those projects are as invisible as the emperor’s new clothes.
To cut through the guff about the recession, the SNP manifesto in 2007 declared that the SNP would propose a new system of infrastructure funding as an alternative to PFI/PPP and that it would introduce a not-for-profit Scottish Futures Trust that would provide lower-cost borrowing opportunities.
Eventually, after much prevarication, which resulted in the infrastructure pipeline virtually drying up, the SNP came forward with NPD. According to Mark Hellowell of the University of Edinburgh, NPD has long-term costs that are “similar” to those of the classic PFI model and
“makes PFI a bit more politically acceptable without changing any of the economics”.
The other slow-moving delivery vehicle—hubco—applies the design, build, finance and manage model that is used in the majority of PPP projects, where the public sector partner has certainty on costs across the cycle and the private sector partner assumes the risks. What was so novel and so difficult about NPD to make it so delayed?
We have heard already that only £20 million of community health projects will be delivered this financial year and that in the next financial year, project delivery is reduced to 40 per cent of what it was before. It was in fact the Scottish Futures Trust that gave us that information, not the Scottish Government, despite the Government’s assertion about transparency.
When Gavin Brown questioned the First Minister on that dismal delivery record at First Minister’s questions on 31 January, we were again treated to an assertion—the First Minister reeled off 13 projects and bundles that he claimed were being delivered. I have checked the SFT’s most recent pipeline projections and the earliest that any of those will be delivered is 2014, which rather questions the definition of delivery. If I have a parcel delivered, it comes into my possession when it falls through my letterbox and I pick it up, not when the sender goes off to procure a stamp.
The Deputy First Minister mentioned Dumfries and Galloway hospital. That project has not even developed a business case yet, never mind got planning permission.
The Deputy First Minister also claimed earlier this month that the Government was going to deliver 67 schools through the NPD programme. However, its pipeline includes a number of school mergers that require consultation under its own Schools (Consultation) (Scotland) Act 2010. That includes the Crichton 15-plus school in Dumfries, which is still under consultation. That school is controversial and it might not ever happen, but the Deputy First Minister has asserted that it will be delivered despite the fact that the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning has assured me that public opinion will be seriously considered.
Yet again, we hear assertion and bluster when we want delivery, not a load of warm words.
15:40
This afternoon we have learned about the subtle difference between Dr Elaine Murray and Richard Baker. At least Dr Elaine Murray thinks of her own jokes to share with Parliament, while Richard Baker repeats Murdo Fraser’s and Gavin Brown’s, to give them full and proper credit for the whole story. It is most revealing that the bitter together campaign has reached the stage of interchanging speeches between Richard Baker and Gavin Brown to try to reinforce their cheery contribution to the debate.
I will shed some light on more of the similarities in the positions that have been taken by the Conservative Party and the Labour Party today. I return to capital expenditure because that is where the debate really starts on the key issue that needs to be resolved.
As I said to Mr Baker in my intervention, the previous UK Government’s final budget in March 2010 forecast that public sector net investment would fall in cash terms from £40 billion in 2010-11 to £23 billion by 2014-15. That is confirmation that the Labour Party planned to apply a significant reduction in capital DEL expenditure to the public sector in general, and the Scottish Government would have felt the consequences of that reduction.
The current UK Government’s plans will see public sector net investment fall from £38 billion in 2010-11 to £26 billion in 2014-15. There we see the similarity in the budget approaches taken by the Labour Party and the Conservatives. The Labour Party is in no position to complain about the approach of the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats to capital expenditure because it was the Labour Party that had the gem of the idea that the right way to tackle the financial difficulties that the country faces was to lay into capital expenditure budgets, although it now tries to recoil from its past.
On the scale and substance of capital budgets, Mr Brown has made a great deal of the timetable for NPD and the importance of undertaking that work. I point out to him that if the Scottish Government’s capital budget had remained constant at 2010-11 levels, an additional £2.5 billion of capital expenditure would have been available to us to be deployed in the delivery of particular capital projects. To use the rhetoric of the motion that Mr Brown has put forward today, that could have supported 35,000 jobs in Scotland—8,750 jobs each year between 2010-11 and 2014-15. Before Mr Brown lectures anyone about the impact on employment, our starting point must be the UK Government’s decisions to reduce capital expenditure in the fashion that it has done.
How many jobs would have been supported if NPD had been delivered according to the programme?
Before Mr Brown gives lessons on capital expenditure, I make the point that the process of capital challenge that we now face started and stopped with the actions first of the Labour Party and then of the Conservative Party, which has carried them on in government.
In her speech, the Deputy First Minister listed the preparatory stages that we have to go through to ensure that projects are well founded. Why does that matter? During the process of preparing the schools programme, for example, our initial estimate was that we would get 55 schools for the budget resources that we had available to us. However, because careful design work has ensured that we do not duplicate effort in similar projects, the current projection is that we can deliver 67 schools for a budget that we originally thought would deliver 55 schools. That is exactly the point that my colleague Mr Mason made.
Somehow, the argument being made in Parliament today is that we should not go through that process. It is argued that we should not be constantly searching to make the money go further and have a greater impact by delivering more improved schools. According to the Conservative Party, we should not be interested in delivering increased value for money for the taxpayer. That is a ludicrous position for even the Conservative Party—including Mr Johnstone—to occupy.
Surely the cabinet secretary realises that that is not what we are saying. He appears to be justifying the idea that permanent procrastination will deliver something; it has delivered nothing and will deliver nothing.
Mr Johnstone spent most of his speech complaining about the fact that we are spending too much money, so he is hardly in a position to ask us to act in that fashion.
Much of the debate has been about transparency. However, lots of numbers and other bits of information have been floating around in the debate. Where did this lot get the information from? The information has been provided by the Government, by the SFT and by our websites. If Mr Macdonald wants to know when the AWPR is scheduled to start and to be delivered, he should check the Scottish Government’s website for the project—
You should be drawing to a close now, please.
That is where all the information is. If Mr Macdonald could do his own research rather than have it handed to him on a plate, he might actually be more effective than he has been today—
Will you close please, Mr Swinney?
And if he will forgive me—
Thank you very much, Mr Swinney. That is perfect.
Mr Brown, you have eight minutes.
15:46
What a place for Mr Swinney to finish. He claimed that the Scottish Government is transparent. Most people think that transparency involves giving information freely and helping people to reach their own decisions. In Mr Swinney’s view, even though it took months for us to get anything from the Government, even though its first excuse turned out to be palpably untrue and its second and third excuses also turned out to be untrue, and even though we still do not have the full details months down the line, the Scottish Government is transparent.
We have heard some fantastic contributions, I have to say, from the SNP today
“in terms of the debate”.
That is a Labour line. Labour and the Tories are swapping lines now.
Order.
Presiding Officer, the cabinet secretary really should not generate more excitement than he can comfortably contain.
Richard Lyle must be congratulated on making an entire four-minute speech without even passing by the subject of NPD. That record was beaten only by Nicola Sturgeon, who managed four and a half minutes. I have to confess that I got slightly lost during Stuart McMillan’s speech, but I was comforted by the fact that he, too, appeared to be lost during it.
Then we had the inimitable Kenneth Gibson, who said with a straight face that the Finance Committee was given a “comprehensive explanation” as to why the projects were delayed. His “comprehensive explanation” involved the Aberdeen western peripheral route, even though speaker after speaker today has gently pointed out that money was never intended to be spent on that project until 2013-14. The AWPR provides no explanation at all—not even a penny’s worth of explanation—for the failure in 2011-12 and 2012-13.
Kenneth Gibson also made the bizarre statement that, under the NPD model, procurement is significantly shorter. That might have sounded good as a soundbite, but it is slightly more tricky to explain why, if the procurement process is significantly shorter under the new system, nothing has happened on the ground. He finished off by saying that the Scottish Government is ahead of the curve in creating jobs and growing the economy—all through NPD—without even realising that nothing has happened in its first two years.
We heard particularly disappointing speeches from ministers today. We asked them for some fairly straightforward stuff at the beginning of the debate. We asked them at least to acknowledge that the results are a bit disappointing, given what has happened on the ground. However, not a single minister or Government representative has admitted that the performance has been disappointing.
We have not had the real reasons why things have been slowed down. We have not heard anything from the Government to suggest that lessons have been learned. We got the usual rant about how it is all Westminster’s fault.
Well, it is.
So predictable.
Could we have a bit of courtesy, please?
In an intervention, Willie Rennie asked a simple question about how much of the failure to deliver on the NPD programme can be blamed on Westminster. The answer to that is nil. The entire NPD programme is devolved, so there is nobody to blame for the failure to deliver on it except the Scottish Government.
Gavin Brown expresses his disappointment with the pace of NPD projects. How does he feel about the west coast main line project that the UK Government has tried to procure for Scotland?
That is more desperate stuff from Keith Brown. He ignores everything that has been said so far and fails completely to talk about the NPD programme, which the entire debate is about. He tries to throw in anything at all to take away the spotlight that is being shone on his Government.
Nicola Sturgeon said that things have not been delayed at all and that it is simply a matter of “reprofiling”. The whole project has been reprofiled—that is a good one to use in any future debate. We heard about transparency. It is not a delay of years; it is just that we have had extra “time taken” in the programme as a whole. Once again, we had nothing but blame thrown at Westminster, despite the fact that the NPD programme is entirely at the behest of the Scottish Government.
We thought that, in John Swinney’s closing speech, we might have some explanation of or detail on what has actually happened, but he spent the opening few minutes of his speech talking about what he thought were similarities between the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. I wish that he would get as interested in the NPD programme as he is in talking about other parties, because then we might make some progress.
Mr Swinney also put forward the absurd proposition that the Conservative Party does not think that preparation is important. It is all down to the preparation stages. In November 2010, when he introduced the NPD pipeline and boasted about the £2.5 billion, did he seriously not realise that there would have to be preparation for the construction projects? At that point, he had been in government for three years. He is a smart chap so, surely to goodness, he was pretty aware that some preparation would need to be done on NPD projects to avoid duplication and ensure that the projects function.
We are no further forward at all on community health. A total of £84 million was meant to be spent on community health this year, but it is not being spent, and we do not know why. Around £65 million was supposed to be spent on colleges, but we have not been given a single reason from anybody in the Government as to why not a penny of that investment has happened this year.
What about the west coast main line?
The west coast main line is not in the NPD programme. As a transport minister, I thought that the member might have been aware of that, but never mind.
In relation to schools, £119 million was supposed to be spent this year, but nil is being spent. We have not had a single reason or justification for that. On roads, £27 million was supposed to be spent, but not a penny will be spent. We do not have a reason for that.
We made some straightforward requests at the start of the debate. The Government should publish the high-level list for 2011-12, just for the sake of completeness and so that we can see what was not delivered in that programme. The Government should explain clearly to the Parliament—perhaps after the debate in a press release or perhaps by publishing a paper—why nothing was delivered in 2011-12, why we are getting only £20 million in 2012-13 and why the figure in 2013-14 is about half of what it was supposed to be. Please can the Government give us a cast-iron assurance that the latest, much lower, projections will be delivered, so that the figure will not be less than £20 million in 2012-13 and not lower than the Government currently says in 2013-14?