First Minister’s Question Time
Engagements
1. To ask the First Minister—ministerial code permitting, of course—what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-00858)
I will be in the chamber to hear the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth delivering a budget for economic growth and job creation in Scotland.
The First Minister said that last time, of course, and the evidence in that budget proved that that was not the case.
We know that we will hear John Swinney’s budget this afternoon. Last year, he presented a budget that outlined engineering giant Doosan’s investment in Scotland but by the time we voted on the budget, John Swinney and the First Minister both knew that that company had changed its plans. When did the First Minister find out about Doosan’s decision? Why did he not tell Parliament?
Doosan’s request to keep its plans commercially confidential had to be respected by the Scottish Government. If Johann Lamont is seriously saying that she would not respect such requests from companies, I rather think that she is a long way from political office.
I know that Johann Lamont will want to acknowledge the outstanding success of Scottish Development International, which this year has once again demonstrated the top performance for inward investment across these islands. Indeed, the latest Ernst & Young survey demonstrates that Scotland beat even London in inward investment. That sort of effort from our agencies should be congratulated, not demeaned.
That is very interesting, but it is not the answer to the question that the First Minister was asked—so nothing new there.
The First Minister knows when he was told about Doosan’s decision and he knows that it was wrong not to tell the Parliament about Doosan’s cancellation, but he just does not want us to know the truth. That is why he has refused to answer any freedom of information requests on the issue.
The refusal to answer questions is not just the First Minister’s style every Thursday at First Minister’s question time; it is increasingly the style of his whole Government. That is why the number of appeals against ministers refusing to release information has risen by 175 per cent in the past year. Why is that? Is the First Minister getting even more secretive, or does he have even more to hide? [Interruption.]
Order.
I have information on the Scottish Government’s performance under freedom of information since we took office. Johann Lamont will not mind if I compare that performance with the performance in 2005.
The number of responses on time has gone up from 75 to 82 per cent, which is a pretty good performance, and the performance on releasing information, which is Johann Lamont’s real concern, has gone up from 69 to 71 per cent. That is a rise from the secretive days of the Labour-Liberal Administration in Scotland. On appeals, judgments in favour of the Government have gone up from 68 per cent under Labour to 72 per cent under the Scottish National Party. On all those criteria, the Government is performing better on freedom of information than the Government that Johann Lamont was proud to serve, which refused to give the people information in a whole range of important areas. [Interruption.]
Mr McNeil, I would appreciate it if you would stop shouting across the chamber.
All of that is very interesting. [Interruption.]
Order.
However, the First Minister is always interesting, creative and enthusiastic, until we go back and look at the figures later.
What the First Minister has to explain is why Rosemary Agnew, the Scottish Information Commissioner, has said that we are in a worse position in relation to rights to information than we were when the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 was passed. It is not me who is saying that; it is the Information Commissioner who is saying it. I suspect that I would trust her figures before those of the First Minister. Of course, this is a First Minister who cannot be straight with or have respect for the Scottish people. He refuses to tell us what advice he has on an independent Scotland’s place in Europe. Incredibly, he has even today taken the Information Commissioner to the Court of Session to try to shut her up, just like when he spent hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ cash—our cash—against official advice to stop the public knowing the truth about his tax plans.
At a time when families across the country are paying the price for his budget cuts, why is he spending hundreds of thousands of pounds of Scottish people’s money to stop the people of Scotland finding out what he is doing?
I come here every week expecting Johann Lamont to ask about the economy and poverty, but she never asks about any of those matters in First Minister’s questions. [Interruption.]
Order.
Can I protect the Information Commissioner from the partial quoting of Johann Lamont? What she actually said was that she was worried about a deteriorating position because of the propensity of local authorities in Scotland to set up arm’s-length bodies. Which council in Scotland has set up more arm’s-length bodies than any other? Glasgow City Council. Incidentally, I will be extremely sympathetic, once we get the Freedom of Information (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill through the Parliament in this term to make the legislation more robust, to the Information Commissioner’s request to extend the legislation to arm’s-length bodies that local authorities have set up.
I should correct what Johann Lamont tells us. The Information Commissioner has gone to the Court of Session today looking for an urgent disposal of the case and we agree with her—we think that there should be an urgent disposal of the case. It is the other way round.
Johann Lamont also wanted to know why there might be more appeals under freedom of information. It might be that there are more requests under freedom of information. I have been doing a bit of research and I find that one person—a Labour researcher—is responsible for over 14 per cent of all the freedom of information requests. Unfortunately, I cannot tell members who this person is because he has asked to remain anonymous. [Laughter.]
Order.
Such is the Labour Party’s commitment to freedom of information. [Interruption.]
Order.
Can I advise the First Minister not to judge his success in that answer by the cheering from his back benchers? He might want to get out a bit more, head for George Square and ask people there what they think of that as an answer to the question. Of course, the First Minister could resolve the problem this morning in the court—he says that the Government agrees with the commissioner and wants to speed things up—because all he needs to do is ask his law officers’ permission to give the information to the people of Scotland. Then the Government would not need to be in court at all.
It is no wonder that the Information Commissioner said this week that it is simply not acceptable that citizens’ rights continue to be eroded. The fact of the matter is that the First Minister says that spending on colleges has gone up when he has cut it; Audit Scotland is investigating the national health service because it does not believe his figures; and he uses taxpayers’ money to go to court to stop the public knowing the truth not just about Europe but about anything that he finds an inconvenient truth. The First Minister wishes that I would ask him the right questions. The people of this country wish that he would start answering questions. We have to ask him a question that people across the country are asking: why cannot this First Minister be straight with the Scottish people?
On the specifics of the European question and legal advice, I think that my comments last week, when I pointed out that the white paper will be informed by the legal advice at that time, offer a solution on providing the information to the Scottish people and complying with the terms of the Scottish ministerial code. I know that Johann Lamont would think it a tragedy if I were to break the ministerial code, and that she would not really want that to happen.
I was not judging the success of my previous answer on the basis of the cheering from the back benches; I was judging it on the basis of Johann Lamont’s countenance, which was extremely worrying. If I am not careful, I will end up on leave with Rami Okasha or swimming with the fishes with Colin Smyth. If people get removed for insubordination within the Labour Party, goodness knows what would happen if Labour ever inflicted on the people of Scotland the misfortune of its being back in government.
Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)
2. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S4F-00856)
The Deputy First Minister and I had a productive meeting with the Prime Minister and the secretary of state only yesterday and the Deputy First Minister will meet the secretary of state again next week.
I find it extraordinary that a political party’s attempt to get information out of the Government of the day should be worthy of roars of laughter and derision from the Government. This is a Government that has been trying to block information being passed to the public.
I also find it extraordinary that the First Minister wanted to compare this year with 2005. I have the figures in front of me. I do not know whether he was talking about 2004-05 or 2005-06, but in those two years the number of appeals that the then Government blocked was 166, compared with the past two years, when the number has gone up to 215.
The case has cost us a six-figure sum—and that is before the two days scheduled in the Court of Session, so the cost is continuing to rise. Before the election last year, the First Minister spent more than £100,000 of taxpayers’ money to keep from voters his plans for a local income tax. How much of the taxpayers’ hard-earned money are he and his ministerial team spending to shore up his secret society and deny the people of Scotland information to which they are perfectly entitled?
I point out that it is the Scottish Information Commissioner who is going to court today, by agreement with the Scottish Government, because she wants an urgent disposal of the public interest element in freedom of information requests. I also point out that the Scottish Government accounts for a minority of the public interest questions that are to be settled in relation to freedom of information.
Ruth Davidson asked about the figures that I have. They are annual figures. The point that I was making was that performance on information released, that is, the amount of information that is given to the public, is at 71 per cent, which represents a rise. Responses on time—incidentally, many appeals take place because of the lack of a timeous response—have risen from 75 to 82 per cent. On the adjudication of appeals, there is a rising trend in favour of the Scottish Government’s interpretation of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002.
I welcome the Conservative Party’s new-found conversion to freedom of information. Perhaps I am open to correction from the new direction of the Conservative Party led by Ruth Davidson, but the Conservatives were the people who were least in favour of freedom of information and most suspicious of giving out any information at all.
I know that, despite the better together campaign and the alliance of the Labour Party and the Conservatives, Ruth Davidson welcomes the fact that, on every criterion, the Scottish National Party Government’s performance on freedom of information exceeds that of the Labour-Liberal Administration that went before us.
I asked about cost, but I guess that the First Minister is keeping that secret too.
We know about the two cases that have cost more than £100,000 each, but the Government has not told us that there have been 500 more appeals since the First Minister came to power. Is he so paranoid that even the smallest details are being blocked, such as requests about who he had been to the theatre with? [Interruption.]
Order. Settle down.
If the First Minister is as open as he says he is—he appears not to be—then, at the risk of sparking yet another costly legal action against the interests of the people of Scotland, will he tell us, for example, what legal advice he has received about an independent Scotland leaving NATO?
In 2006, 8 per cent of cases went to appeal; in 2011, 6 per cent of cases did so.
Ruth Davidson must take on board the point that I was making about the increased volume of requests. I am sure that no Conservative researcher is solely responsible for 14 per cent of FOI requests.
I confirm that I have not been to the theatre with any member of the Conservative Party parliamentary group, and I have no intention of doing so. With that reassurance, I hope that I have put Ruth Davidson’s mind to rest.
The First Minister will be aware of SSE plc’s decision last week to close the grid in Orkney to new connections and effect a moratorium that risks a loss of revenue and jobs to the islands, as well as posing a threat to investor confidence in Orkney’s hard-won reputation as a hub for renewables.
I am grateful to Fergus Ewing for his positive engagement with me and local stakeholders in seeking to identify technical, regulatory and other solutions, but it will take time for those solutions to be put in place. I therefore ask the First Minister to make urgent representations to Ian Marchant at SEE to ensure that everything possible is done to accelerate that process, alongside any steps that may be taken more immediately. In particular, will the First Minister support an urgent review of proposals by Orkney Islands Council that could facilitate a switch away from fossil fuels, increase electricity demand, and thereby help alleviate the grid constraints?
I thank Liam McArthur for raising the issue. Orkney has massive renewables potential, and I know that when Scottish Cabinet colleagues were in Kirkwall recently, they were impressed by the work that has been done there. We recognise that grid capacity in Orkney and the moratorium on new connections that was recently announced by the network operator are a cause for concern.
This week, I raised the issue of island connections with the secretary of state at a meeting in London. I put together the proposal—on the precise issue of connection charges which, as Liam McArthur, well knows, is directly related to this issue—for a working group involving the Scottish and United Kingdom Governments and the island councils, in consultation with the network operators, to try to resolve the issue of grid capacity and future charging, to allow the renewables potential of the northern isles to be unleashed. The secretary of state was interested in that suggestion, and I hope that it can be taken forward, because it is in the interests of the northern isles and all Scotland that our island communities’ economic potential contributes to the whole Scottish nation.
The First Minister will be well aware of the severe fuel crisis in the Western Isles, where garages are running out of petrol and diesel, and motorists are forced to accept rationing at the pumps. That, of course, has severe consequences for emergency vehicles and the public they serve. Will the First Minister agree to meet Scottish Fuels urgently to help find a solution for the Western Isles?
Mr Swinney has been in touch with Scottish Fuels. I know that the issue relates to the tanks in South Uist and the work that is needed to address that situation, so we agree to that meeting, we will pursue the matter and I hope that we will find a solution.
The First Minister will be aware that May Gurney, which is a major employer in Falkirk, as well as in Dundee and Aberdeenshire, has announced that up to 250 jobs are at risk as a result of a reduction in work received from one of its major clients. With the company pledging to work with employee representatives and its other clients in an attempt to minimise the number of job losses, will the First Minister ensure that the Scottish Government offers whatever support it can to give May Gurney and its employees support at what is, understandably, a difficult time for them?
I share the member’s concern about yesterday’s announcement by May Gurney regarding Scotia Gas Networks. The issue relates to the amount of contracted work from the regulator to reinforce the gas network in Scotland. I am deeply concerned about the reduction in that contracted work from the regulator and about the impact that that may have on employees and their families and the surrounding areas of Dundee, Falkirk and the north-east.
Yesterday, I spoke to Michael Thompson, the managing director of May Gurney, and I immediately offered support through partnership action for continuing employment—the PACE programme initiative—for those employees who may be affected by redundancy. In addition, as there are key skills involved in the reinforcement of the gas network that are certainly transferable to a number of other industries, including the water and electricity industries, I have undertaken to be personally involved in seeing the maximum amount of transfer take place to mitigate the number of job losses in Falkirk, Dundee and the north-east.
Government Funds (Improper Use)
3. To ask the First Minister what safeguards exist to protect taxpayers against improper use of public funds by Government agencies. (S4F-00870)
The Scottish Government is committed to the highest standards of accountability across the public sector, as is evidenced by six consecutive years of unqualified audit opinions from the Auditor General for Scotland on the Scottish Government’s consolidated accounts.
Scottish Enterprise has been demonstrating its own imaginative approach to stimulating economic growth in Scotland and protecting the taxpayer, with junior employees withdrawing thousands of pounds on the organisation’s corporate credit cards for personal use. How some businesses would love that kind of flexible friend. If that is the experience at Scotland’s enterprise agency, heaven knows what may be going on elsewhere in the public sector.
Will the First Minister instruct an urgent investigation into use of corporate credit cards by his Government agencies, to ensure that more robust safeguards for protection of the taxpayer are applied across the board?
Let us remember that Audit Scotland contrasted the high level of commitment to the national fraud initiative in Scotland with the level of compliance from the UK Government.
Internal audit at Scottish Enterprise identified some non-compliance issues in relation to use of corporate credit cards for personal use, but given the requirement on those concerned to settle the bill personally, Scottish Enterprise suffered no financial loss as a result. It has increased the frequency of its review processes to ensure that any future non-compliance is highlighted and addressed quickly. The situation is not quite the dramatic one that Annabel Goldie suggested in her question.
National Tennis Centre
4. To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government will consider establishing a national tennis centre. (S4F-00863)
I was delighted to meet Andy and Judy Murray last Sunday. It is clear that both of them are passionate about developing tennis in Scotland. In order to ensure that youngsters make the most of their talent and potential, they need to have greater access to facilities and coaching.
We had a positive discussion about their idea for a tennis academy, as well as on how to improve existing facilities and the overall level of interest in tennis, all of which is certainly in line with the Scottish Government’s ambition to increase young Scots’ participation in sport. We will be exploring that with the Murrays and their team over the next two months, and we hope to make an announcement in that regard in the near future.
I thank the First Minister for that answer. Will he take the opportunity to congratulate Craiglockhart tennis centre in my constituency, which has the largest junior tennis participation programme in the whole United Kingdom? Can he assure me that the Scottish Government is doing all that it can to provide facilities for tennis and grass-roots sport for all ages and all abilities across the whole of Scotland, in order to ensure a lasting legacy from the Commonwealth games in 2014?
Yes. Jim Eadie is quite right to draw attention to the successes that have been achieved in tennis. A range of figures on participation and the number of coaches tell us that tennis is—for understandable reasons—very much on the up in Scotland. I can give the member the assurance that he seeks.
However, in the context of the creation of a wider range of sports facilities, we should also reflect on the substantial contributions that have been made to the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome and the indoor sports arena in Glasgow, the £55 million investment in world-class facilities in the Aberdeen sports village, the Toryglen sports complex and, of course, the refurbished Commonwealth pool here in Edinburgh. All that will be added to by the facilities that are being built for the Commonwealth games and by the £25 million that has been committed to Scotland’s first-ever national performance centre for sport, which will have a football academy at its heart. All those initiatives bode well for the future, both for participation and for the excellence of sport in Scotland.
North Lanarkshire Council, which is one of Scotland’s leading local authorities, has announced that 1,300 job losses, many of them in my Motherwell and Wishaw constituency—
I am sorry, Mr Pentland, but that is not what the first question was about. We are talking about a tennis centre. Could you resume your seat?
This is Nursing Campaign
5. To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government supports the Royal College of Nursing’s this is nursing campaign, celebrating the professionalism and compassion of nursing staff. (S4F-00865)
Scotland’s nurses and other national health service staff do extraordinary work day after day and deserve our whole-hearted and united support. I am pleased to record my personal support, the support of the Government and, I think, the support of the Parliament for the Royal College of Nursing’s this is nursing campaign, which, as Richard Simpson rightly said, celebrates the professionalism and compassion of nursing staff.
I am sure that the whole Parliament would join the First Minister in praising our hard-working nursing staff. However, I ask the First Minister whether he agrees with his back benchers, who said yesterday that the Royal College of Nursing was wrong when it stated that nursing staff numbers are now at their lowest since 2005. Is the First Minister asking the public to believe that axing 2,500 nursing posts is having no direct effect on the ability of our nurses to deliver the quality of patient care to which they aspire and which the RCN campaign celebrates?
That is not what the SNP back benchers said. What they said was that in Scotland there are more qualified nurses and midwives per 1,000 of the population than there are in the rest of the United Kingdom. The figures are 7.9 nurses and midwives per 1,000 members of the population here, compared with 5.9 in England, 7.2 in Wales and 7.6 in Northern Ireland.
There are currently more nurses and midwives in post than there were in nine of the 10 years during which Labour was in government in Scotland, in the great boom years for public spending. Now that we have the detail, which we got last week, on national health service staffing in Scotland, I hope that the Labour leader will withdraw her constant and inaccurate remarks that fewer staff are employed in the national health service than were employed when the Scottish National Party took office. It is clear from the statistics of last week that more people are employed in our national health service now than when the SNP took office. I know that Johann Lamont and Richard Simpson will be anxious to correct the record at the earliest possible opportunity.
To follow on from Richard Simpson’s point, I ask the First Minister for his reaction to the experience—including mine, as stated yesterday—of members that the number of nursing staff on night duty on hospital wards falls short of patients’ needs and expectations and leads to unnecessary pressure on front-line staff.
Obviously, these are times of extraordinary economic stringency. Despite the determination of this Government and its achievement in protecting the revenue budget of the national health service in real terms—which has not been done by some other Administrations in these islands, and people would have considerable doubts about whether a Conservative Administration would have managed such an achievement—our national health service is still under pressure. That is all the more reason, therefore, to celebrate the record achievements and the range of indicators that show that our national health service staff—our nurses, our doctors and the whole range of staff throughout the national health service—are performing exceptionally for this country in difficult times.
Mackerel Fishing
6. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s position is on the study published by the New Economics Foundation relating to a halt to mackerel fishing. (S4F-00859)
The Scottish Government agrees with the report that fishing at sustainable levels would result in increased profit for the industry. That is why we are working with fishermen and moving towards fishing at maximum sustainable yield. It has to be said that the benefit of the transitional approach that we are working on in partnership with fishermen is that the skills of our fishermen and their market capacity are not lost—key factors that are not considered in the report.
On mackerel and sustainability, the entire Parliament should unite in congratulating Scottish and, indeed, Norwegian fishermen on their having fished that stock sustainably over a period of many years, and we should unite in our demand to ensure that the European Union comes to an agreement with Iceland and the Faroes on the current totally unsatisfactory overfishing by those fishing communities. That is why there has to be a resolution of the crisis and implementation of sanctions as soon as possible.
The report has caused considerable concern in north-east communities, where mackerel fishing is a key part of the industry. Will the First Minister advise what the Scottish Government is doing to influence the UK Government and others to ensure that some of the more extreme approaches that are outlined in the report do not gain traction elsewhere and are not pursued? Does he agree that it would be easier to advocate on behalf of the Scottish fishing industry if we had a seat at the top table as an independent Scotland at the heart of Europe?
Richard Lochhead has been doing an extraordinarily good job in making the case for Scottish fishing communities. Of course, it would be much easier for him to do that job if he was not prevented from speaking at some European council meetings, as he has been. Given that Scotland holds three quarters of the UK’s mackerel quota, it seems to be illogical that ministers who are responsible to this Parliament do not have a full seat at the council, when making decisions on the industry’s future. It is surely self-evident that a Scottish minister who is responsible to this Parliament, and who represents and is answerable to Scotland’s fishing communities, should be able to make the case as a member of the European Union.
The report has rightly been slammed by fishing organisations. However, on fishing stocks, is the First Minister able to update us on what the Scottish Government is doing to ensure a continued supply of mackerel to supermarkets and other outlets? Can he confirm that the meeting with the supermarkets that was promised by his Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment has taken place?
I will get Richard Lochhead to respond directly to, and update, Claudia Beamish. Over the past few years, he has had many meetings with supermarkets, with enormous success for Scottish food and drink.
The key issue with the mackerel stock is resolution of the situation with the Faroes and Iceland. Given that the stock, which has been fished sustainably for many years, is one of the most profitable that is available to our fishing communities and, therefore, our supermarkets, we must get a resolution to the overfishing that is taking place, outwith the boundaries of international law, by Iceland and the Faroes. That is why Richard Lochhead has been pushing so strongly to get action by the European Union, which—along with compliance with international regulation—is the way to ensure sustainable supplies for our fishermen to catch and our consumers to eat.