Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, May 20, 2010

Official Report 1083KB pdf

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First Minister’s Question Time

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First Minister (Engagements)

1. To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S3F-2405)

I will have engagements to take forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.

Last week, I asked the First Minister about a document that shows Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS Board’s plans to cut 1,200 posts in the national health service in Glasgow. It was clear that the First Minister had no idea that that was happening and could not explain why it was happening. He has had a week to think about it; would he like to try again?

The plans of the NHS across Scotland are part of the annual labour force return that is submitted to the Government. It is clear that 10,000 more people are working in the NHS in Scotland than when this Government came to office. It is also clear that the quality of health care will be our top priority, that there will be no compulsory redundancies in the health service in Scotland, and that at the end of this parliamentary session there will be more people working in the NHS in Scotland than there were when we took office.

The fact that no compulsory redundancies are planned in the NHS is welcome, but that is not the point, is it? If 1,200 posts are removed from the NHS in Glasgow, we cannot say that there will be no cut in service. If those were all pen-pushers’ and bureaucrats’ jobs, maybe we could believe the First Minister, but they are not: Glasgow wants to cut 650 nurse and midwife posts.

Now we see the Lothian NHS Board plan. To be fair, Lothian plans to get rid of 133 managerial posts. However, it also plans to get rid of 333 nursing posts this year. If 650 nurses in Glasgow and 300 in Lothian are not contributing to patient care and are not providing front-line services, and are not going to be missed, what on earth are they doing? Can the First Minister tell us?

I am glad that Iain Gray agrees that the pledge of no compulsory redundancies in the national health service in Scotland is important. It is particularly important, given that the BBC reported on its news website on 17 May:

“The BBC has learned a £2bn pot is being set aside in England to pay for one-off costs, such as redundancies”

in the national health service. It is crucial that there is a pledge of no compulsory redundancies in the national health service in Scotland, when we see what was developing in England—and just in case there is any dubiety on the Labour benches, the report that was mentioned was from before the general election campaign.

The efficiency savings in the national health service in Scotland run at 2 per cent a year. They have been achieved and they have contributed to the excellence of patient care across a range of services—and will continue to do so. This Government has increased real spending in the NHS year by year, the percentage of Government spending on the NHS has increased during our term in office and there are 10,000 more staff working in our health service than there were when we took office. That has been achieved despite the cuts from Westminster that have been inflicted on this Government, this Parliament and this country this year.

In eight years of Labour administration of the NHS in Scotland, there were no compulsory redundancies, so I will be delighted if the First Minister can continue that. However, over that period of time, there was also a steady increase in the NHS budget and the number of staff working in the NHS. Although it is true that there was a 0.1 per cent real-terms increase in this year’s NHS budget—a fraction, I might say, of the real-terms increase in the rest of the UK—that begs the question why, during the past week, drip by drip, we have discovered that 500 posts are to go in Tayside, 600 jobs are to go in Grampian, 1,200 are to go in Glasgow, and 2,000 are to go in Lothian.

It transpires that the First Minister has had those plans since 30 April. What about Lanarkshire, Highland, Forth Valley, Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders? The First Minister must know. How many NHS jobs is he planning to cut? How many doctors? How many nurses? He knows; will he tell us now?

Iain Gray talks about the past eight years, and it is absolutely true that public expenditure has risen during the past eight years, until this year when Labour cuts started to bite. This Government has sustained real spending on the national health service—[Interruption.]

Order.

—and increased the percentage of Scottish expenditure that is devoted to the national health service.

At a time when we know that the Labour Party was preparing to make widespread redundancies across the national health service in England, I am afraid that it is rather important to have the guarantee of no compulsory redundancies in the health service in Scotland. [Interruption.] I am sorry that Labour members do not want to hear that. Are they not aware that a Department of Health report prepared by the consultants McKinsey and Company—[Interruption.]

Order.

—and leaked to the Health Service Journal in September of last year, revealed that the NHS in England will have to shed 137,000 jobs, which is almost one tenth of its workforce?

The idea that we are all going to forget that Labour drove the economy on to the rocks, was planning to make public expenditure cuts that were tougher and deeper than Margaret Thatcher made, has reduced public spending in Scotland in real terms for the first time since devolution and was planning widespread redundancies across the national health service in England would require us to engage in the greatest act of collective amnesia in Scottish history. I tell Labour that it will not wash. The consequences for public spending are the consequences of Labour’s mismanagement of the economy. [Applause.]

Order. When I ask for order in the chamber, I do not expect that to be an invitation to anyone to continue as they have been doing. Also, just as the questions in the chamber must refer to matters that lie within the First Minister’s responsibility, the bulk of the answers should do so as well. [Applause.] Order!

Presiding Officer, you are quite right. I asked a question about the NHS in Scotland, which is the First Minister’s responsibility. I asked a question about the NHS this year, the year in which the First Minister has £1 billion more than he did last year. What do we see? Accident and emergency departments in Fife are closing because they do not have enough staff; community health partnerships in Glasgow are collapsing; and thousands of NHS posts are going. If Alex Salmond had published the plans in April, when he received them, his election slogan would have had to be, “More nats, less nurses.”

We know that the Con-Dem cuts are coming in June, but the con man’s cuts are here right now. If he has so much confidence in them, I ask the First Minister to publish all the workforce planning documents for every health board, right now—today—and let us see how many doctors and nurses he plans to cut.

We will publish the documentation when we establish the three priorities: the quality of health care remains our top priority; there will be no compulsory redundancies in the national health service in Scotland; and we pledge that, at the end of this parliamentary session, there will be more people working in the national health service than there were when we took office.

Let us talk about this year. I do not usually quote the Daily Mail—it is not my required reading of a morning—but I was fascinated to read in it yesterday about cuts in public spending this year and to find that Andy Kerr, who is in charge of Labour’s response to public spending, is attacking John Swinney for not cutting the Scottish budget this year. He said:

“The decision to postpone reductions will mean a double whammy the year after.”

Far from the Labour Party and its financial spokesman wanting more expenditure on the national health service this year, they are actually asking us to implement Tory cuts this year. [Interruption.]

Order.

That is an extraordinary situation. Before Iain Gray comes to the chamber and talks about cuts in the health service, he should ask his finance spokesman why he wants to reduce the Scottish budget even further this year than the Labour cuts will do. That is a ridiculous position. If he can come to an agreement with his finance spokesman, perhaps he can toddle along to the chamber with a semblance of credibility.

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Prime Minister (Meetings)

2. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister. (S3F-2406)

I will next meet the Prime Minister on Tuesday 8 June.

That is most encouraging. As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown did not come to the Scottish Parliament in three years; David Cameron came within three days. That is a symbol of the new working relationship between our Governments and our Parliaments.

One of David Cameron’s first commitments is to order the Treasury to look at the fossil fuel levy, which could release millions of pounds for green jobs in Scotland—money that was blocked by Gordon Brown.

In the spirit of co-operation, will the First Minister work with the United Kingdom Government on today’s coalition agreement, to renegotiate general practitioner contracts to provide better out-of-hours services, to scrap Labour’s jobs tax, to protect front-line services, to support post offices, to deliver high-speed rail, to participate in Calman, to help veterans with mental health problems, and to give the children of servicemen and women who have been killed in action scholarships to universities? Those are just a few of the excellent proposals in the coalition agreement.

We all know that the Scottish National Party minority Government has run out of ideas and that it is the United Kingdom Government that is now setting the agenda. Will the First Minister work with the Prime Minister to do his best for Scotland? That, Mr Salmond, is real progressive politics.

When I proposed the progressive coalition last week, it was as an alternative to Conservative rule over Scotland, not as an addition to it. We all know that Labour ran away from that particular responsibility. [Interruption.]

Order.

On co-operation, as ever, in the interests of Scotland, I expect not just the Government but the whole Parliament to co-operate and to advocate things in the national interest. Yes, it would be a good thing if Scotland got access to our own money—the £180 million fossil fuel levy, which has been lying unused in a London bank account for the past six years. It would be a good thing if we had borrowing powers for the Parliament so that we could mitigate the full impact of decisions on expenditure, and cuts, that come down the line. It would be extremely useful if we had capital acceleration or a jobs plan in the Scottish economy this year, and it would be a really good thing if the Barnett formula, while it survives, was applied fairly so that we got consequentials from all spending decisions, for example those on regeneration funding for the Olympics.

If the Westminster Government addresses those issues fairly and properly, I will co-operate, as should every member of this Parliament. It is a matter of some regret that when I asked for co-operation from the main Opposition party on those items—which must be good things for Scotland, as they would help us to mitigate the impact of cuts from Westminster—that co-operation was not forthcoming from Labour. As a Parliament, let us look at the policies and act in the interests of the country.

Indeed—let us look at the policies.

The First Minister’s plan to impose a blanket minimum price on all alcohol is floundering. Today’s coalition agreement has come up with a way forward. Will the First Minister support a ban on the sale of alcohol below cost price? Will he work with the UK Government to target problem drinks and problem drinkers through alcohol taxation and pricing? Will he use existing legislation to clamp down on underage drinking? Will he work with the UK Government to find a way forward on a solution to Scotland’s and Britain’s binge-drinking problem? Will he ditch his blanket minimum pricing policy, which is probably illegal and which would certainly penalise responsible drinkers?

Annabel Goldie has shattered the air of consensus that she built up during her first question.

A number of measures can be taken to tackle Scotland’s problem with alcohol, and minimum pricing is most certainly one of them. I find it incredibly surprising that there seems to be, as far as I can detect, more of an acute awareness among Conservatives south of the border than there is among Conservatives here of the importance of raising the general price of accessible alcohol—that is, high-strength, low-quality alcohol—the availability of which is part of the serious problem that afflicts all areas of society, particularly our young people. If Annabel Goldie chats to some of her English colleagues in the same co-operative way in which I have been trying to identify common ground, perhaps she will adopt a more consensual position on Scotland addressing its attitude to alcohol.

I make a final point to Annabel Goldie about ideas for this Parliament. I agree that on single issues it will, I hope, be possible to gain some common ground to improve the Scottish position, but she must acknowledge that there is planned a series of public spending cuts the like of which this country and this generation have never seen before. In the light of that, does she not agree that it is all the more important that we in this Parliament have the economic and financial powers to expand the economy, as opposed to being limited to trying to mitigate the impact of Westminster cuts?

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Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)

3. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S3F-2407)

I will meet the Secretary of State for Scotland on the same day that I meet the Prime Minister.

The United Kingdom Government’s programme contains many proposals that can help Scotland and the Scottish economy and, above all, create Scottish jobs. They include action to get banks lending to Scottish businesses; support for marine renewable energy; the creation of an offshore electricity grid; action on rural fuel prices; the provision of superfast broadband for the whole of Britain, not just the cities; an income tax allowance of £10,000; and a significant premium for disadvantaged pupils at school. Which of those proposals does the First Minister support for the Scottish economy and for Scottish jobs?

I agree with a number of those proposals. When Tavish Scott told people during the election campaign that a vote for the Liberal Democrats was a vote to make Scotland a Tory-free zone—

It was a vote for the Lib Dems.

I am merely saying what Tavish Scott said in the election campaign. I did not realise—and perhaps the people did not, either—that the objective of making Scotland a Tory-free zone was to remove Tory policies from the Conservative party manifesto and to insert Liberal Democrat policies instead.

I think that Tavish Scott will find that, as the coalition agreement develops, there will be a range of issues on which he and I will find the policy direction totally unsatisfactory, because the coalition Government still has a Tory majority within it. He might well find that on a range of issues, Tory policies predominate.

I agree that we always find things that are unsatisfactory, such as broken promises on class sizes, teacher numbers, grants for home buyers and the abolition of student debt. For all the First Minister’s talk about the economy, he needs to explain why unemployment under the nationalist Government has been rising faster in Scotland than in the rest of Britain. Why does he not agree that getting banks to lend to viable businesses and supporting renewable energy, an offshore electricity grid and superfast broadband are good for Scottish jobs? Will he not accept the need to work with the UK Government on tackling the recession and creating the jobs in Scotland that we need?

As I have already said, where there are policies that are in the interests of Scotland, the Government will co-operate. I have listed a number of such policies, and I hope and believe that Tavish Scott shares the ambitions on those.

Given that in 85 of the 96 months in which Labour and the Liberal Democrats were in administration, unemployment was higher than the United Kingdom average, I am not certain that employment is the strongest area for Tavish Scott to embark on questioning on.

I am delighted to tell Parliament that we will today be announcing support for John Lewis in creating 450 jobs in Hamilton technology park. Those are vital jobs in a key area of Scotland, and I will write to local members to explain the full implications of that welcome announcement from John Lewis.

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Taser Use (Ministerial Guidelines)

4. To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government believes that ministerial guidelines are needed in relation to the use of Tasers by police officers, given the recent report by Amnesty International. (S3F-2411)

The deployment of Tasers is an operational matter for chief constables. The purpose of the pilot in Strathclyde is to test the effective use of Tasers by specially trained officers. Our police are highly professional and we trust them to make sound judgments on the use of Tasers, taking into account concerns for community safety and human rights.

Given the on-going legal debate about the use of Tasers, will the First Minister consider working with key partners, including the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, the Scottish Police Federation, Amnesty International and others, to draw up a code of practice for police using Tasers, and using any evidence gained from the Strathclyde Police to reform that code? Does he agree that police officers, who daily put their necks on the line, and at-risk citizens, who expect police to intervene in dangerous situations, have human rights and that those should be a powerful driver in any code?

I agree that the safety of police officers and the protection of the public are of paramount importance. The police already follow a code of practice on the use of Tasers, which was developed with the National Policing Improvement Agency. I am sure that the results of Strathclyde Police’s trial on Tasers will inform any future revisions of those guidelines.

Does the First Minister find it odd that according to the answer from the Cabinet Secretary for Justice to a parliamentary question from me, the policy of Scottish police forces on the deployment of Tasers is derived from Association of Chief Police Officers guidance for England, Wales and Northern Ireland—guidance that has been withdrawn in those countries? Does his Government accept the view given to Amnesty International by Aidan O’Neill QC that section 5 of the Firearms Act 1968 specifically requires written authority on the issue from Scottish ministers? If so, does he accept the implication that further deployment in the Taser pilot without such ministerial authority may be unlawful?

I hope that Robert Brown expressed the same concern on 18 January 2006—when, if I remember correctly, Robert Brown supported a coalition Government in Scotland—when Cathy Jamieson, then Minister for Justice, said:

“The deployment of Taser guns is an operational matter for chief constables.”—[Official Report, Written Answers, 18 January 2006; S2W-21670.]

I do not agree with the legal advice that Robert Brown mentions. Taser weapons are defined as firearms under section 5(1)(b) of the Firearms Act 1968. At present, Scottish ministers have no power to issue guidance on the use of firearms, including Tasers, since the matter is reserved. Of course, one of the areas for co-operation that may emerge soon in Parliament is to press for the devolution of responsibility on such matters—indeed the full devolution of powers over firearms. There is widespread agreement on that throughout Scotland. If we can find agreement in Parliament, the legal position might well change.

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Community Sentences

5. To ask the First Minister how the Scottish Government will finance its plans to increase the use of community sentences. (S3F-2415)

The Government has increased the money that is available for community service from £13 million in 2008-09 to £19 million in 2010-11. That is a 45 per cent increase. As the Cabinet Secretary for Justice said to the Justice Committee on 13 April and to James Kelly in answer to a written question earlier this month, the Scottish Government will monitor closely increases in the uptake of the planned new community payback order, and will work with local authorities to assess funding needs.

If the Scottish National Party proceeds with plans to introduce a presumption against six-month sentences, that will add up to 8,000 community service orders to a system in which disposals are not being completed on time. Based on the Government’s financial memorandum to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, that will cost £22 million, which is not accounted for in the record £35 billion Scottish Government budget. Does the First Minister agree that the SNP plans are based on no more than a wing and a prayer, are destined to fail and will put public safety at risk?

The member is far too pessimistic about the matter. I would rather listen to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities community safety spokesman, Councillor Harry McGuigan, who welcomed the increased community service funding before the Justice Committee in October last year, saying:

“I was delighted about the additional resource”.

He also said:

“That resource has given us an opportunity to deal effectively with the backlog and to appoint people who are more professionally versed and who can bring a greater quality to some projects.”—[Official Report, Justice Committee, 27 October 2009; c 2304.]

I am delighted to tell the member that, today, we will put figures in the Scottish Parliament information centre that indicate a substantial improvement in the completion times for community sentences. The member will remember the new target of commencing work placements within seven working days. That target is now being met by 63 per cent of offenders, compared with 19 per cent in 2008. Those figures and the increased funding show that substantial progress has been made. I know that the member will soon want to join the ranks of the positives and the optimists, such as Councillor Harry McGuigan.

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National Health Service (Efficiency Savings)

6. To ask the First Minister what scope the Scottish Government believes it has identified to achieve further efficiency savings in the NHS without impacting on front-line services. (S3F-2417)

Despite the £500 million of cuts in the Scottish Government’s budget this year, we have provided the national health service with a record budget of £11.348 billion. The efficiency programme ensures that both quality and value are delivered for that record investment in our health services. We have done that while maintaining the three key principles: the quality of health care remains our top priority; there will be no compulsory redundancies in the national health service in Scotland; and there will be more staff working for the national health service in Scotland at the end of the current parliamentary session than there were at the beginning of it. The national health service efficiency and productivity programme set a £313 million target for 2009-10. We expect that to be exceeded by £56 million. Crucially, every penny of that money is retained by the national health service and reinvested in front-line services.

Does the First Minister recall that it was the previous Labour Minister for Health and Community Care who led the campaign to cut accident and emergency departments throughout Scotland? Does he agree that the most devastating consequence for NHS front-line services would have been its having to find £36 million to pay for Labour’s jobs tax, through its increase in national insurance contributions? Will he confirm and give a pledge that he will match the coalition Government’s ambition that was announced this morning to reduce the cost of NHS administration by a third and to invest those savings directly in front-line services?

There is much in the first part of Jackson Carlaw’s question that I can agree with. On the second part, there are statistics that he should reflect on.

A House of Commons select committee report that was published on 30 March found that 14 per cent of the national health service budget in England and Wales is spent on administration. National statistics that were released on 24 November last year show that 7.2 per cent of the Scottish national health service budget is spent on administration.

We share—I hope that every member in the chamber shares—a desire to keep administration costs to a minimum and emphasise front-line services. Those statistics indicate that one of the great advantages of the national health service in Scotland, compared with the more market-driven model that the Labour Party introduced south of the border, is that administration costs are substantially lower in Scotland. Jackson Carlaw should reflect on that as we drive for efficiencies in the national health service.

12:30 Meeting suspended until 14:15.

14:15 On resuming—