Plenary, 20 Mar 2008

Meeting date: Thursday, March 20, 2008

Official Report 789KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

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Engagements

To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S3F-615)

Later today, I will have meetings to take forward the Government's programme for Scotland.

Through Wendy Alexander, I thank the 66 per cent of Labour voters who are highly satisfied with the Government's performance.

We know that the First Minister knows everything that there is to know about his popularity, but how much does he know about his flagship policy? Last week, he failed to tell the Parliament how much that policy would raise, but yesterday, the information was sneaked out in answer to a parliamentary question. [Interruption.]

Order.

Was a deliberate decision taken to withhold all those numbers from the official consultation document?

Answering parliamentary questions is usually an open and above-board way to proceed. As has been explained, the detailed figures were issued in the answer to a parliamentary question and are available in the Scottish Parliament information centre. I suggest that Wendy Alexander starts to read and examine the figures. If she does, she will find out why a tax that is based on the ability to pay is fundamentally better than Labour's unfair council tax.

There was no answer on whether a deliberate decision was taken to withhold all the numbers from the official consultation document. Of course, we all know that the First Minister wants the detailed scrutiny of his flagship policy to go away. The Scottish National Party's plans would replace one collection system with three new ones: a new system for collecting local income tax; a separate system for taxing second homes; and another new system to collect water and sewerage charges.

The SNP has nothing to say about the substantial extra cost to employers, and no numbers are in the official document. When he proposed abolishing the council tax, even Tommy Sheridan could estimate how much that would cost, so why cannot the bank manager and the economist who now run Scotland, with all the resources of the Government at their disposal, do the same?

I am trying to work out who the bank manager and the economist are. However, according to Labour voters and just about everybody else in Scotland, they seem to be doing a better job and to generate more confidence than Wendy Alexander's team would. Running Scotland involves managing a budget of £30,000 million. I remind Wendy Alexander that she had difficulty in managing a budget of £16,000.

The First Minister is rather like Tommy Sheridan in one respect: if he were Scottish chocolate, he would eat himself. People out there are not really interested in the spite and the sarcasm; they just want to know how much his nat tax will cost them. This is a case not of can't say, but of won't say, which deliberately leaves every Scottish employer and worker in the dark.

This is the First Minister's flagship policy—the biggest tax change for a generation. Does he really expect us to believe that at no point in the past 10 months did Mr Swinney ask for any cost estimates for the three new collection systems that ministers propose?

The estimates for collection are in the figures that have been published in the parliamentary answer to which Wendy Alexander referred. I suggest that she reads parliamentary answers before asking more questions. I understand well why she would wish to insult me but, for the life of me, I do not see the point of her insulting Tommy Sheridan—that seems to be a counsel of despair. The detailed figures have been published—I suggest that she reads them.

Tell us where they are.

Just a second. If Wendy Alexander reads the figures, she will recognise and learn that taxation based on the ability to pay is fundamentally fairer than taxation such as the council tax, which the Labour Party managed to increase by 62 per cent from March 1997 to last year. That is why there is such overwhelming support for a fair system of local taxation.

A little more dignity and a little more accuracy would serve the First Minister's office well. His proposals require three new tax collection systems. The official document that he has produced contains not a single estimate for any of them. The parliamentary answer that was published yesterday contains a guesstimate for one of them. That guesstimate was made without anyone even speaking to HM Revenue and Customs, the organisation that the First Minister wants to collect the tax.

I cannot explain why the First Minister wants to hide all the figures. Perhaps it has something to do with the totals. SPICe indicates that the system will cost almost £100 million to set up and £100 million to run—a cost of more than £0.5 billion over the next session. The First Minister has provided us with no figures. This week the SNP announced a new business focus for Scotland week in the US. What is the point of that, if the First Minister's message to America is "Welcome to Scotland, the most highly taxed part of the United Kingdom"?

The message to America will be "Come to Scotland for skills and innovation". We will probably spend some time drawing attention to the dramatic taxation cut for small business in Scotland that will be so widely welcomed.

If the figures are not there, as Wendy Alexander says, why is she able to quote them? Having taxation collected by HM Revenue and Customs—a system that was put in place under the Scotland Act 1998 to collect revenue raised under the 3p tax-varying power—is fundamentally more efficient than a widely discredited council tax system.

I hope that Wendy Alexander will forgive me when I say that, when it comes to trust in politics and politicians, five years ago the Labour Party abandoned hope of ever being trusted again, when it took us to war on an illegal prospectus—a decision that was supported by Wendy Alexander in the Parliament. I know that Simon Pia thinks that everything in Wendy's garden is lovely. Given the approval ratings, I suggest that he has become the comical Ali of Scottish political journalism.

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Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S3F-616)

I have no plans to meet the Secretary of State for Scotland in the near future, but I spoke to him briefly the other day.

This week the Robert Foye review laid bare the gaping inadequacies of a system that, appallingly, resulted in the rape of a schoolgirl. Yesterday the Scottish Prison Service admitted that high-risk prisoners such as Mr Foye could still be considered for transfer to an open jail; unbelievably, it could all happen again.

As if that were not bad enough, next week the Scottish Government proposes to allow even more dangerous criminals out of jail even earlier, on home detention curfew. That is just the latest move in the Scottish National Party's unrelenting drive to empty our jails. Why is the SNP so soft on crime and criminals?

As Annabel Goldie knows, the Scottish Prison Service has published its assessment and review of the Robert Foye case. It recognised in its statement, as does every party in the chamber, the unacceptable nature of Robert Foye's vicious attack on a young woman. The seven recommendations in that statement will be implemented either immediately or within the next few weeks. In addition, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice has asked for a presumption against returning to the open estate anybody who has absconded from it. The underlying matters about the control of our open estate system will be put to the McLeish commission for further study. That is a comprehensive response to a dreadful occurrence.

Given that the open estate has been part of the Scottish prison system for more than 50 years, there is a case for us, as a Parliament and across the parties, to recognise the important role that it fulfils. Although dreadful mistakes do and can happen, the Scottish Prison Service is working to its utmost and best to protect our communities from harm.

The public want prisoners in prison; the SNP Government wants convicts in the community. Who would have thought that when the SNP cried "Freedom!" it had in mind the prison population?

The chilling facts are that home detention curfew will mean that more and more prisoners will get out earlier and earlier, and, disturbingly, the system that will run home detention curfew is precisely the same one that failed so appallingly in the Foye case.

Instead of being soft on the prison population, will the Scottish Government be strong for victims, stand up for the public of Scotland and abandon the impending disaster of home detention curfew?

Home detention curfew can play a valuable role in the Scottish Prison Service. The Scottish Government—like, I hope, every political party—has the protection of the public uppermost in its mind.

I have said to Annabel Goldie that it is best not to make partisan points out of such issues—or that it is best to be careful about them. I was extremely disturbed to note that Bill Aitken has been giving the impression in a number of statements that the Prison Service's open estate in Scotland is not working as it should as regards availability, escapes and absconds.

We have discussed previously the fact that the 66 prisoners who absconded this year are 66 too many. The figure is lower than it was last year and the percentage of prisoners absconding in relation to the open estate population is at its lowest for many years. However, to see how much consensus there was about the open estate policy, I asked for figures that go back quite a few years. I found that in the last year of the Conservative Government, when Michael Forsyth was the Secretary of State for Scotland and James Douglas-Hamilton was the prisons minister, 98 prisoners absconded from the open estate in Scotland and the open estate prison population was 290. That is more than twice as many absconds as happen at present.

I do not think that Michael Forsyth or James Douglas-Hamilton were trying to put the public in danger or at risk. I just hope that when Annabel Goldie and her colleagues talk about such matters, they recognise that no party in the chamber has anything other than the safety of the public uppermost in its mind.

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Cabinet (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S3F-617)

The next meeting of the Cabinet will discuss issues of importance to the people of Scotland.

Five years ago today, British armed forces started the invasion of Iraq. That was opposed by the Liberal Democrats, by many others in the chamber and by tens of millions of people in protests on an unprecedented scale throughout the world.

Five years on, thousands of allied soldiers and tens of thousands of civilians have been killed, yet the deaths continue and the Government's justifications for taking us to war look ever weaker. Yesterday, I lodged a motion in the Parliament that calls for a full public inquiry into the war and, this morning, my colleague Lord McNally tabled a bill in the House of Lords that would require such an inquiry. Will the First Minister allow his party's members, including his ministers, to sign my motion, and will his Government support a full public inquiry?

The Scottish National Party gives comprehensive support to an independent and complete public inquiry into the causes of the war in Iraq. To be fair, the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons supported just such a resolution and debate when I introduced that two years ago. I am certain that the proposal has cross-party support, including from Labour members of the United Kingdom Parliament and the Scottish Parliament, who believe that an inquiry is necessary and would be timeous.

We can do nothing about the minimum of 151,000 people from the population of Iraq who are now dead, the 175 British soldiers, many of them Scots, who are dead, or the thousands of Americans who are dead; and we can do nothing about the catastrophic effect around the world of what has happened in Iraq, with international instability.

The purpose of such an inquiry, which we support fully, would be to try to ensure that never again can the country be misled into an illegal war, because people who might do such a thing will understand that there will be a day of reckoning and that such a decision will have ramifications.

There is one area in which the First Minister can make a direct difference and an issue on which he needs to take urgent action now: he can change the law to allow Scottish fatal accident inquiries to report on the deaths in action of Scottish soldiers. He can get rid of the current system of inquests in Oxfordshire, with all the trauma and upheaval that it causes relatives and families.

The Ministry of Defence has signalled its willingness to co-operate. Does the First Minister understand the distress that the delay is causing? Families were told by his spokesman in the House of Commons last June that it was all being sorted. Last week—nine months on—all that was announced was a review. What is the timetable for changing the legislation?

Five years on from the start of the war, it is tragically clear that young Scottish soldiers will continue to be exposed to danger and death in Iraq. Is it too much to ask their Government to give them and their relatives the consideration and the dignity that their service and their sacrifice deserve?

No, it is not. The Government supports measures to ensure that FAIs or other procedures can be a Scottish answer to the huge delays that have caused many service families distress. As Nicol Stephen knows, Lord Cullen is reviewing FAIs. We recently wrote again to the UK Government, asking to accelerate matters. I was disturbed to read this week about suggestions from the MOD that commentary on why individual soldiers met their deaths—which I think no coroner south of the border and certainly no sheriff north of the border would make unless it was absolutely necessary—might be censored in some way. That would be totally undesirable, because just as it is important that service families hear about such matters quickly, it is also important that they have confidence that the person on the bench, whoever they are, can speak the entire truth without fear or favour.

I am sure that, given the issue's importance, the First Minister will have read the report into the absconding from Castle Huntly of Robert Foye. Was the victim's family contacted before the publication of the report? Is allowing out on licence prisoners who have tested positively for drugs protecting communities? Who has taken responsibility for the absolutely disgraceful and unacceptable management of the affair?

I hope that contact was made with the victim's family, but I shall inquire about that to make sure that it was done and then write to the member.

The systems that we have in place in respect of the open estate have been in place for a number of years. It is absolutely right that the Scottish Prison Service should seek to review its procedures, as it has laid out in the report. I hope that the seven recommendations carry the support of the whole Parliament but, as I said to Annabel Goldie, it would be best if we proceeded on the assumption that every one of us wants the open estate to work to its best and our communities to be kept safe from harm.

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Local Government Elections

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government has any plans to alter the date of the local government elections in Scotland. (S3F-619)

The Scottish Government is taking steps to implement the decoupling of Scottish Parliament and local government elections. Yesterday the Scottish Government published a consultation paper on decoupling, which stated that our preferred method would be to move the local government elections to a position midway through the parliamentary session. That would be facilitated by extending the present council term and the next council term by one year. Thus, elections would be held in 2012 and 2017. Although that is our preferred option, we are open to alternative views and we encourage everyone who has an opinion on the matter to voice it through the consultation process.

As the First Minister knows, the Gould report recommended, and—on 10 January—the Parliament approved, the decoupling of the elections. The Parliament agreed with the Gould report's recommendation that executive and legislative powers over electoral law, including that relating to local government, should be transferred from Westminster to the Parliament. What progress has been made on electoral law in respect of local government elections?

The Gould report made such a recommendation. Its first recommendation was that it was sensible that one authority—this Parliament—should have full executive and legislative responsibility for Scottish Parliament and local government elections. Labour members apparently no longer agree with that position, but we cannot rewrite the Gould report at this stage. The Gould report most certainly contains that recommendation. The Labour Party tends to regard with suspicion any move to enhance significantly the Parliament's powers, but I am not sure how that squares with the working party that Wendy Alexander wants to be developed.

Is it not an entirely sensible idea that any self-respecting Parliament should have control of its own elections? Is that not particularly sensible, given that the people who have control of them at the moment did not make much of a fist of it last year?

I wonder whether it is in order for the First Minister to misrepresent the Parliament's decision, which was that responsibility for the administration of the elections should indeed be a matter for this Parliament but that legislative responsibility is an entirely different matter, which should be considered by the proposed Scottish constitutional commission? Does the First Minister recall that that was the majority view of the Parliament when we debated the issue?

I know that Jackie Baillie will have prepared her question, but I point out to her that I was talking about what was in the Gould report. I know that Labour members wish that the recommendation in question was not in the Gould report, but it is.

I was present for the parliamentary debate that Jackie Baillie mentioned. I detected that there was enthusiasm for a significant change and for following the recommendations in the Gould report. I detect from the question that the Labour Party is starting to backtrack from that position. That is a great pity, because if this Parliament were to speak with a united voice on such an obviously sensible suggestion, we might even be able to persuade the Scotland Office to do the right thing for a change.

The First Minister will be aware that the turnout at recent council by-elections has hovered at around 25 to 30 per cent—

Cambuslang!

—and that, before 1999, when council elections were held separately, the turnout was consistently much lower than in joint elections.

Does the First Minister acknowledge that such low turnouts damage the democratic mandate even of councils that are elected using the fairer single transferable vote system? Does he agree that the issue is a considerable downside to decoupling council and Scottish Parliament elections? Does the Government have a strategy for overcoming that challenge if it goes ahead with changes?

I think that Liberal Democrats are alone in the Parliament in not supporting decoupling. The argument is that if the election campaign takes place on local government issues, under a fair voting system, there is a chance of generating the interest that will produce a satisfactory turnout. There is a substantial complaint from local councillors across the parties that having council and parliamentary elections on the same day—regardless of the additional administrative problems that such a system causes—shields and prevents local government issues from being properly examined during the election campaign. Robert Brown should have more faith that we can generate the interest that is required to increase turnout in local government elections.

I heard Lord George Foulkes shout "Cambuslang!" from a sedentary position. The most recent election did indeed take place in Cambuslang, and the Labour vote declined by 22 per cent—[Interruption.]

Order.

If we applied that swing to the Parliament, only five Labour constituency members would be left. Lord George is not worried about that, because he is a list member.

I gently point out to the First Minister that the Parliament resolved that:

"the proposed Scottish Constitutional Commission should consider the full legislative framework for Scottish Parliament elections."

Indeed, he voted in favour of that resolution.

Will the First Minister guarantee to decouple the next elections, regardless of what agreement is reached on other recommendations in the Gould report?

We are going forward on the consultation document. There is an argument that decoupling is sui generis—it stands on its own as an idea that is worth pursuing.

I have given the member a favourable answer, so I hope that he will agree that it would be a good thing if we did not just cherry pick from the Gould report but implemented all the report's recommendations, including the recommendations on legislative and administrative control, so that Scotland can be confident that its own Parliament has the confidence to run its own elections effectively.

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Charities and Voluntary Organisations <br />(New Futures Fund)

To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government will take to ensure that charities and voluntary organisations currently funded by the new futures fund will not be adversely affected by the ending of that funding. (S3F-637)

The Scottish Government strongly supports the work of the third sector. We are making £93 million available over three years—a 37 per cent increase on the previous spending review. That will include the £30 million Scottish investment fund.

Under this Government, from next month the fairer Scotland fund, which is worth £435 million in 2008 to 2011, will be in place across Scotland. The fund will give community planning partnerships greater flexibility to support projects that make the biggest difference to people's lives.

The First Minister's response provided no answers for bodies such as the Aberlour Child Care Trust and the Salvation Army, which tackle addiction and support vulnerable families, particularly in Glasgow. The replacement funding to which he referred will not be available to such bodies until September, by which time projects will have folded. Will he order emergency transitional funding, to save jobs and preserve vital work?

I gently point out that the new futures fund was programmed to end in March this year by the previous Administration, and that it is worth £3 million per year, whereas the fairer Scotland fund is worth £435 million over three years.

In response to the argument that the Labour Party deploys—that somehow the lack of ring fencing is leaving charities and good organisations throughout Scotland exposed—I can do no better than say:

"It is ironic that we have heard more from some opposition parties about these groups as part of an attack on the government's Budget than we have ever heard over the last eight years."

Those are not my words; they are the words of Pat Watters, Labour councillor and president of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities.

I have been working closely with the Realise Community Project, which is an employability project in Maryhill in Glasgow that was formerly funded by the new futures fund. I met the Glasgow community planning partnership, which has moneys under the fairer Scotland fund from the new futures fund. Does the First Minister agree that community planning partnerships must be independent of Government and that working with voluntary sector organisations, as I am doing, is far more constructive than engaging in the cheap scaremongering and politicking that we hear from Opposition members?

I willingly accept that the member is infinitely more effective than Iain Gray is, although I would not dream of describing him in the terms in which he has been described.

Community planning partnerships must have greater flexibility to support the projects that make the biggest difference to people's lives. The fairer Scotland fund will enable them to have exactly that flexibility. I agree that members should work constructively with their community planning partnerships. Co-operation, concordat and agreement across Scottish society are very much the way forward as opposed to the old ways of top-down diktat that took Scotland nowhere.

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Class Size Reductions (Placing Requests)

To ask the First Minister how class size reductions will impact on pupil placing requests. (S3F-620)

Every member in the chamber supports the statutory right of parents to make placing requests while acknowledging the fact that the great majority of parents are happy with their local school and choose not to do so.

Eighty thousand people petitioned the Scottish Parliament to reduce class sizes—I think that it was the second biggest petition in the history of the Parliament. With the support of teachers and parents, reducing class sizes is one of the SNP Government's most popular policies. It will lead to better education in every school.

I thank the First Minister for that piece of propaganda. Does he agree that forcing class size changes on hard-pressed councils will further restrict parental choice? How will he support parents in choosing a school for their children?

I do not agree. I would never accuse Hugh O'Donnell of asking parliamentary questions or making political statements for propaganda purposes. Clearly and obviously, that is the preserve of the people of whom he is asking the questions.

Having lower class sizes is a key part of increasing both the popularity of all parts of the Scottish education system and the confidence of all parents. The consequence of ensuring that all Scottish pupils get a decent start will be a reduction in placement requests and an increase in the general level of satisfaction with the education system across Scotland.

Meeting suspended until 14:15.

On resuming—