First Minister's Question Time
Question 3 has been withdrawn.
SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE
Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister when he last met the Secretary of State for Scotland and what issues were discussed. (S1F-544)
I speak regularly to the Secretary of State for Scotland on the telephone, and no doubt will meet him next week at the Labour party conference.
As this is the last First Minister's question time for Alex Salmond, and as we may be caught up soon in the staccato of debate, I wish him a happy retirement. Given the starting point, it is likely to be long. I hope that it is quiet and peaceful. [Applause.]
I thank the First Minister for his good wishes. Who knows? He might break the habit of a lifetime and follow my example.
In the meantime, the First Minister will not be surprised to know that I have been reading the Black report. I am sure that he has been as well. We read that: the project team on the Holyrood project did not have the right people; it did nothing to prevent the spiralling cost of fees, which has now reached £26 million; Treasury rules were not followed; there was not, and still is not, a proper cost plan; the construction management team was not the lowest but the second highest tender; and the Scottish Office had an incomplete procurement strategy for the Parliament. Given that the First Minister appointed all those people, will he take responsibility now for the cost escalations that have bedevilled this project?
Of course, I would never duck my responsibility for the actions that fell within my terms of operation, but I say to Alex Salmond that there is a genuine difficulty regarding selective quoting. What he said is not entirely representative.
I will take one example that has had a lot of publicity—fees. It is worth noting that there is no real criticism of the first attempt to set the fee structure. There is a suggestion that it would have been possible to try to renegotiate it, but I draw Alex Salmond's attention to paragraph 3.36:
"Different fee arrangements may not necessarily have been more economic in this case."
I put that to him because there is a great deal of subtlety in this report. It is not the kind of document that has been described in the headlines.
On project management, I ask Alex Salmond to look at paragraph 19 of the summary:
"The creation of the project management team reflected good practice. There was a clear chain of command. The Scottish Office appointed a team with a mix of relevant skills and there was clear communication with other officials planning for the new Parliament."
While I am prepared to argue the toss with him, I want to do it in a proper and balanced way.
The First Minister would be on shaky ground. When paragraph 3.12 says that the project team did not have the right people in it, and when the project costs have escalated at least two-fold—and perhaps fourfold, depending where you start from—the First Minister is not on strong ground in arguing for what he has just told this chamber.
The spin is that it is all the fault of the Presiding Officer and the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body, and that things just started to go wrong when they took over. That is what was being briefed to the BBC yesterday morning. I see the First Minister is looking surprised. Given that the Auditor General said explicitly at the Audit Committee that in June 1999 the project was not handed across in good shape to the SPCB, will the First Minister accept responsibility for the cost escalations that have bedevilled this project?
I have no intention of going in for some kind of blame culture or of trying to shift responsibility on to anyone else.
That is not what the First Minister said to Councillor McGuigan. What about North Lanarkshire direct labour organisation?
I do not see the immediate parallel between North Lanarkshire Council and the Holyrood project and I do not think I will bother discussing the matter with Dennis Canavan in order to find out.
I say to Alex Salmond that there is a multiplicity of reasons. For example, as he will know, the most obvious reason was that the building was increased in size very considerably in the second half of 1999. I well understand why that happened and make no complaint about it.
We all have responsibility for that increase, as it is without doubt that the corporate body moved in response to pressure from this chamber. A substantial reason for the escalation in cost was that between June and mid-September 1999, there was a long and time-consuming attempt—which was, in a sense, obstructive to other work—to redesign the chamber. In fairness, I ought to say that that attempt was made in response to heavy pressure, particularly from the SNP benches and from Michael Russell. We all have a certain degree of responsibility for what has happened.
I remind Mr Salmond that the Auditor General's report ends on a positive note in relation to the independent elements in the progress group and to the way in which the progress group is setting about its business.
In the Auditor General's preface, his first and overwhelming judgment is:
"If the new building can be completed within the approved project budget, the Scottish Parliament will have a distinctive high-quality building of historic significance at a cost which seems to bear comparison with other major public buildings."
It may be that Alex Salmond does not believe that, but if he asks me to take seriously the Auditor General's judgment—which I do take seriously—he should take it seriously as well.
Perhaps the people of Scotland should have been told the true costs when we started out on the project. Perhaps the difference between the First Minister and North Lanarkshire Council is that someone carried the can for the faults in North Lanarkshire, while the First Minister does not appear to be prepared to do that as far as the Holyrood project is concerned.
Let me take the First Minister back to June 1999, when the Parliament gave the go-ahead to the Holyrood project, approving that decision by three votes. The project was hanging by a threat—we might have gone to that nationalist shibboleth up on Calton hill, which is where everyone in the public wanted to go.
We know from the report that the Parliament was not informed about £27 million-worth of estimated cost during that debate. The First Minister said that he was not informed about that estimated cost, but he also said that the officials were right not to tell him.
In paragraph 3.49, Robert Black says that it was the duty of the project team to inform the First Minister about cost estimates, following which, I presume, the First Minister would then have informed Parliament. Does the First Minister regret that Parliament was not given the true figures in June 1999, when we decided to go ahead with this ill-fated project?
I am not sure that this is the best forum in which to debate the detail of these matters. [Members: "Oh."] In June 1999 and to the best of my ability I announced a total cost of £109 million and, from memory, £62 million-worth of construction costs. I do not think that anyone has suggested—and I hope that no one will suggest—that I acted dishonestly or improperly on that occasion. I gave the best evidence available to me.
Mr Salmond implies that the risk estimates that were discussed by the experts in the construction team but that were not included in those figures were the cause of future difficulty. If he looks at paragraph 3.58, he will see the following statement:
"While the particular risk items in question did not subsequently materialise or were overtaken by subsequent changes in the project, there remained"
other significant risk elements.
My point is that it is clear from what the Auditor General said that the risk elements that were not included in the June 1999 figures were not risk elements that crystallised, and therefore they cannot be blamed for the subsequent difficulties over cost estimates.
All that I ask the First Minister to accept is the fact that the Auditor General for Scotland says that it was the duty of the project team to inform the First Minister of the cost escalation, so that he could have informed us and so that we could have taken an informed decision.
I must tell the First Minister what disturbs me about the matter. When the Minister for Children and Education refuses responsibility for the Scottish Qualifications Authority, he will be held accountable at the polls. When the fuel tax is blamed on everyone else, the Labour party will be held accountable at the polls. Even Tony Blair will be held accountable for the dome in London. The difficulty with the Holyrood project is that the responsibility starts to impinge on the whole Parliament and brings it into disrepute.
The First Minister would improve the situation if he apologised to the people of Scotland for the cost escalations of the project. Will the First Minister say that he is sorry for the sorry tale of Holyrood?
Every elected member takes their chances with the electorate. We will have to wait and see what weight the electorate gives to the issue of the new building. I will stand on our record as a whole, including the lowest unemployment for 24 years, more schoolteachers, more classroom assistants and the impressive warm deal package to assist older citizens that we launched recently. As Alex Salmond knows, at the end of the day, there are many issues on which we will be judged.
At the end of the day, we want to produce a building that is worthy of our Parliament and that will do the job that all of us who work in it would want. There is plenty of evidence in the Auditor General's report that that is possible. Many people are working very hard to achieve that. I wish them well. If Mr Salmond is genuinely worried about damaging the Parliament by making too much of this problem, perhaps he should consider his tactics and those of his colleagues.
Cabinet (Meetings)
The First Minister has paid tribute to Mr Salmond. On behalf of the Conservatives, I would like to say that we recognise the significant contribution that Mr Salmond has made to Scottish politics in the past 10 years. Although we do not want him to return as president of the people's republic of Scotland, we wish him fulfilment in many other aspects of his life, not least at the races and at Tynecastle. I look forward to crossing swords with his successor. Having been the nice guy for all of one second, I will put my question to the First Minister.
2. To ask the First Minister what issues were discussed at the most recent meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S1F-543)
I do not need to look in my book to discover the answer to that. The Cabinet discussed several matters of significance to the Executive and to the people of Scotland.
Like Mr Salmond, I have been reading the Black report. Mr Salmond asked about some of the technical aspects of the report and the detailed costings. I would like to take the First Minister back to where we started—the white paper. Mr Black does not discuss that paper at all in his report, because his starting point is June 1998.
In his previous role, Mr Dewar and his colleagues signed off a white paper that said, for the purposes of the referendum campaign, that the building would cost between £10 million and £40 million. As everyone knows, the cost has risen to £50 million plus extras, to £109 million plus extras and to £195 million plus extras, which are now costed at some £14 million. On the radio this morning, a leading architect said that the eventual costs could reach £300 million.
Does the First Minister not think it reasonable to acknowledge that people were misled about the true costs of the Parliament right from the start? The estimate that misled them and the foundation for much dissent is the estimate that was made in the white paper, for which the First Minister is politically responsible. Will the First Minister accept that responsibility so that we can move on?
I accept it in the sense that I was responsible for the project at that stage. I am happy to recognise that fact. The £40 million estimate that appeared before we came into office was based on the advice that was available before any site selection had taken place and when no designs were available.
As Mr McLetchie knows, we then moved very quickly to the figure of £50 million. That figure is always compared to the figure of £195 million; however, as a fair man, he will know that the £50 million figure was a construction cost alone and so the comparison is not between like and like.
Furthermore, I draw Mr McLetchie's attention to paragraph 2.4 of the Auditor General's report, which says:
"The £50 million construction estimate underlying the selection of Holyrood in January 1998 is a suitable benchmark against which to assess the subsequent increase in forecast costs . . . It was based partly on careful desk assessment by civil servants of the expected space requirements of the new Parliament."
The paragraph goes on to say that there was
"a detailed schedule of areas required . . . totalling some 21000m2",
which was subsequently increased for reasons that I well understand to 31,000 sq m. That explains a great deal of what has happened. The report then says that there was a thorough and professional investigation of the various sites available, on which basis a decision on the site was made. If Mr McLetchie considers that series of points by the Auditor General, he cannot really sustain the argument that the project was the result of someone having a fling without proper preparation or advice or without a serious concern and interest in getting a building worthy of the cause.
Someone might not have been having a fling to start with a benchmark of £50 million in January 1998; however, someone was having a fling—and making a deception—to put figures between £10 million and £40 million in a white paper in July 1997. I would love to know what expert advice indicated that any Parliament anywhere in the world could have been built within that price range. That was the con at the root of this problem.
There are concerns about the mounting cost, which now stands at £209 million—£195 million plus, as I am sure Mr McConnell will confirm, and £14 million from Historic Scotland. There will be more costs, due to the work on the road network on the other side of the site. In view of those facts and in light of the opinions of many experts that the costs could reach £300 million, will the First Minister reconsider appointing an Executive minister to work with the Holyrood progress group to ensure that the Parliament is delivered on time and on budget and that the costs are contained?
A great deal of work is going on to contain costs under the general supervision of the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body and the progress group. As he has majored on this subject today, Mr McLetchie will know that the Auditor General has commented favourably on the establishment of the progress group, which he felt would
"help to strengthen independent scrutiny of the Holyrood project".
Furthermore, in paragraph 3.68, he makes a particular point that the group's
"membership includes an architect and a quantity surveyor, both of whom are independent of project management".
In June 1999, the whole project was handed over to the Parliament out of the care of the Executive because it was a Parliament not an Executive project. That was the right decision and it is right that the progress group has been set up as it is.
I say to Mr McLetchie—I hope that he does not find my comments offensive—that I find it quite extraordinary that he should attack the progress group, implying that it is allowing things to slip hopelessly out of control and calling for all sorts of other people to be included on it, when he has neither the courage nor the interest to allow any member of the Conservative group to join it. I understand that the nationalist member is working extremely well on the progress group, which includes my colleague Lewis Macdonald and Tavish Scott. However, it contains no Tory member, and I put it bluntly that I do not understand why that is, unless it is for the dishonourable reason that Mr McLetchie just wants to get out from under. He has refused to let any member of the Conservative group serve on the progress group.
The First Minister knows perfectly well that there is no Tory member on the group because he, charged with the responsibility of the Scottish block in his Executive, refused to appoint a member of the Executive to take direct ministerial responsibility for the biggest public works project in Scotland. He must show some responsibility as the First Minister of this country, and I can assure him that, the day he appoints a minister to the group, a Tory will also make a contribution. The ball is in the First Minister's court, not mine.
That is a unique point of view, as the membership of the progress group illustrates. I say to David McLetchie—and I am certain that I am right about this—that if we had appointed a minister to the progress committee, we would have been attacked immediately on the grounds that that was not proper and that it was a breach, at least in spirit, of the arrangements that had been made when the project was handed over to the SPCB. I suspect that Mr McLetchie would also have raised the considerable technical or procedural difficulties entailed by such an appointment. Instead we appointed someone who is now chairing the group and who is working extremely well with other parties to ensure that we have what the Auditor General clearly believes is possible—
"a distinctive high-quality building of historic significance at a cost which seems to bear comparison with other major public buildings."
That is an aim and objective that we can achieve, but it is not helped by the kind of attitude that has been displayed in recent times by the Conservative group in this Parliament.
Inward Investment
To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive is taking action to ensure that Scotland's science and research base is good enough to attract inward investment to Scotland. (S1F-549)
I thank Elaine Thomson for her question. I believe and am confident that Scotland's science and research base is good enough to attract inward investment. The Executive is taking wide-ranging actions and initiatives to support and enhance Scotland's science and research base. That is evidenced by Ernst & Young's "European Investment Monitor", which recorded Scotland as attracting the largest number of mobile research and development projects of any UK region in 1999-2000. We want to maintain and build on that, but the evidence is that we are making progress and succeeding.
I welcome the First Minister's response and fully agree that our commitment to the science and research base must ensure more job creation across Scotland. Does the First Minister agree that Scotland's oil industry is dependent on high-quality research and development work? Scotland is also the focus of groundbreaking work on technology for renewable energies. Will the First Minister give an indication of the Executive's commitment to this area? How is the Executive preparing the groundwork for us to make the switch to renewable energies?
I agree entirely with Elaine Thomson about the importance of the oil industry and the technology that is built on it. Sometimes we have been criticised for not making the most of that and exporting our expertise to other parts of the world. However, some firms have been outstandingly successful in that respect.
I have no doubt that over the next year or two there will be heavy investment in the North sea. The dramatic change in the oil price will encourage that. There are difficulties, largely because the techniques of extraction are changing. Many of the old rigs and jackets are not likely to be used to the same extent as they were in the past. That does not mean that we do not have an important duty to work with the industry to increase investment and to build the technological skills that will be not only enormously important to the oil and gas and energy industries, but very relevant to other industries that we are trying to grow in Scotland.
I call Mr Gallie.
Thank you for calling me, Presiding Officer—persistence pays off.
Does the First Minister believe that Scotland's ability to attract inward investment is enhanced by the appointment to the impartial position of part-time chairman of employment tribunals of a full-time trade union official? [Interruption.] The First Minister should know about such things.
I probably know as much about this as Mr Gallie does, as I read about it in the newspapers. However, I did not immediately take it up as a campaigning tool, as I suspect Mr Gallie did. That is one of the reasons that his politics do not always command the respect that he would like them to.
The appointment of chairmen to employment tribunals is not a devolved area of policy, so I would not comment on it except to say that it is extremely important that, because of the job that they will do, the chairs of such tribunals are appointed on merit and on the basis of their impartiality. It is very unfortunate if Mr Gallie is insinuating that someone does not have those characteristics because they have worked for a trade union. It would be just as stupid if I were to say that someone could not chair tribunals because he had once employed labour. Mr Gallie would be the first to protest against that.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Could you tell us what opportunities exist for us to question the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body about the contents of the Black report? Will you or another member of the SPCB make a response to the report so that we can question the corporate body on its responsibilities and on what it intends to do about the findings of the report?
The convener of the Procedures Committee and I are in the midst of correspondence on the wider issue of whether there should be oral questions to the SPCB in some form. That has not yet been resolved.
I understand that, next week, the Audit Committee will interview Mr Black and the two accountable officers. It will be up to that committee to decide whom else it wants to see.
I recognise that that is not an entirely satisfactory answer to your question, but we will have to wait and see what the Parliament wants. I am ready to do whatever the Parliament wishes.