Plenary, 26 Jun 2008

Meeting date: Thursday, June 26, 2008

Official Report 557KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

I inform members that, as Wendy Alexander has lost her voice, although she will ask her question as printed in the Business Bulletin, I will then call Cathy Jamieson to ask supplementary questions to question 1, as permitted by standing order 13.7.5, which states:

"If the member who asked the question does not ask the first supplementary question, any member may, at the discretion of the Presiding Officer, ask a supplementary question or questions."

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Engagements

I have indeed been rendered speechless.

On that note, for the last time before the recess, I ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S3F-925)

I wish Wendy Alexander a speedy recovery.

I am busy with engagements for the rest of the day—a full programme to take forward the Government's programme for Scotland. I might not get as much publicity as Wendy Alexander, but it is a busy programme nonetheless.

I, too, wish Wendy Alexander a speedy recovery.

The Government recently published its plans to tackle Scotland's booze culture. Today, I ask the First Minister about his plans to tackle Scotland's blade culture. Last July, Damian Muir was stabbed to death in a random and unprovoked attack in Greenock. Damian's father, John Muir, is visiting Parliament today to deliver a petition of 15,000 signatures. The petition asks the Parliament to consider mandatory sentences for knife crime. I ask the First Minister what his Government is doing to tackle Scotland's blade culture.

We are considering exactly that, among other measures. Cathy Jamieson will be well aware of the initiatives that have been taken against the blade culture. As a former justice minister, she will know how difficult these matters are. However, I think that she will recognise that this issue is one that the Parliament can unite behind, to address one of the serious problems in Scottish society. In turn, I welcome the broad support of the Labour Party for our assault on the drink abuse culture in Scotland.

We recognise that effective action to tackle the blade culture is every bit as important as tackling the booze culture. At the previous election, the manifestos of both Labour and the Scottish National Party promised a sentencing council to deliver consistent and effective sentencing throughout Scotland. When will that sentencing council be established?

Within the next few days, we will have the long-awaited report of the McLeish commission, which will help us enormously not just to bring the criminal justice system in Scotland up to date but to rationalise our sentencing policy, our approach to prisons and our approach to community punishment. We should thank that commission for its work and I very much look forward to the publication of its report.

I, too, look forward to the report of the McLeish commission, because there are some serious issues to address. I press a point in relation to the sentencing council. We appreciate that any sentencing council must be led by the judiciary, but will the First Minister ensure that if and when a sentencing council is established, there is a mechanism to allow that council, in its deliberations, to hear the voices of the people of Scotland, the voices of victims and indeed the voices of their families?

It is important that we do that and that we hear the voice of organisations such as Victim Support Scotland. We are committed to the sentencing council. I assure Cathy Jamieson that once the McLeish commission reports, we will respond quickly to its provisions and recommendations.

With due respect to the First Minister, although I welcome what he has said, to date there has been little action on this vital issue. In February, in answer to a question from Duncan McNeil, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice said:

"We are not closed to considering further legislative action".—[Official Report, Written Answers, 27 March 2008; S30-2828.]

It is now the last day of the parliamentary term. Will the First Minister give an assurance that, when his programme for government is debated on the first day back after recess, the sentencing council will be part of that programme?

As Cathy Jamieson knows, we are bringing into consideration a criminal justice bill, in addition to the McLeish commission and the most radical assault on the abuse of booze in Scotland. I am sure that Cathy Jamieson, like me, would not want to underrate in any way the connection between crime levels and the booze culture in Scotland. According to some estimates, over 50 per cent of crime is alcohol related.

Given the new criminal justice bill, the McLeish commission and the various initiatives that he has made as the Cabinet Secretary for Justice, the one thing that Kenny MacAskill could never be accused of is inactivity. On the contrary, we have a Cabinet Secretary for Justice who is putting the interests of the Scottish people first and rallying a great amount of support for tackling the underlying problems in Scottish society.

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Secretary of State for Scotland

I, too, wish Wendy Alexander a full recovery. Wendy Alexander without a voice is a strange phenomenon.

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S3F-926)

I met the Secretary of State yesterday at the first plenary meeting of the joint ministerial committee since 2002.

The First Minister has just celebrated what is popularly known as his paper anniversary, but he should not let romance go to his head. Some of the brave promises that attended his arrival in government are, one year later, turning out to be more brash than brave and, in some cases, more brazen than brash.

However, let us not be churlish. I congratulate the First Minister on finally admitting that he is not the master of political infallibility and that even he can get things wrong. I congratulate him on ditching the first-time buyers grant. Will he demonstrate continuing humility by indicating to the chamber on this anniversary which other parts of his manifesto are not worth the paper they are written on?

We have been totalling up the number of commitments that we have undertaken and delivered over the past year: 137. I do not have time to go through every single one, although if Annabel Goldie wants to make an appointment, perhaps we can discuss it in more detail. Let us call these the magnificent seven: funding a freeze on council tax over the next three years; the small business bonus scheme for 150,000 small businesses; removing the tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges—[Applause.]

Order. That is enough applause, thank you.

—reversing the closure decisions at Ayr and Monklands hospitals; abolishing—in this, the 60th anniversary year of the health service—prescription charges over the next few years; reintroducing free education, after a gap of some years thanks to Labour and the Liberal Democrats; and, of course, signing the historic concordat with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The concordat is second this year only to the national conversation on independence and Duncan McNeil's historic declaration that the Labour Party would not stand in the way of an independence referendum.

Many of us have good reasons to look forward to the recess, but respite from the historic concordat must be at the top of the list.

I return to the hair-shirt opportunity that I am giving the First Minister to show a little humility, however alien an experience that may be for him. For example, the policy on class sizes is seen by most councils as financially untenable and by the Scottish National Party-led City of Edinburgh Council as undeliverable in law. Is it not time to ditch that promise and to concentrate our resources on the things that really matter in our classrooms?

Throughout Scotland, from the business community to students to Glasgow City Council, local income tax is being lambasted and ridiculed. Is it not time to drop that promise and cut council tax instead?

Finally, if something is really beginning to unnerve the public, it is the SNP's unrelenting drive to create a soft-touch Scotland and its continual dumbing down of Scotland's criminal justice system, which have led to the emptying of our prisons, the extension of home detention curfews and the setting free of prisoners to commit more crime. Above all else, will the First Minister please use his forthcoming recess to go home and think again?

Annabel Goldie was doing so well until the last bit of her question. I am forced to remind her that, in its 18 years of government, the Conservative Party did not build a single prison in Scotland and created the system of automatic early release that this Government is—with, I hope, Conservative party support—committed to ending. Moreover, when the Conservatives were in government, there were three times as many absconds from the open prison estate as there are now.

If Annabel Goldie's party is to have any credibility with regard to criminal justice and crime levels in Scotland, it must change its approach to the misuse of alcohol in Scotland. In that respect, the approach taken by her young Turk sitting at her right-hand side is at best immature and at worst irresponsible.

Like Miss Goldie, I do not want to be churlish. On that basis, I want to say how much I deprecate the remarks of former leading Tory MSP, Brian Monteith, who last week said:

"while Goldie may be a game old bird—she is competent within her policy-light limitations and has a St Trinian's sense of humour—beyond the

appeal to

"her blue-rinse brigade, she has little crossover appeal."

I deprecate those comments as sexist, ageist and typically Tory. No member of the SNP will ever describe Annabel Goldie in those terms.

I think that that deserves a further question from Miss Goldie.

The last bit of the First Minister's response does not worry me in the slightest, but the first bit does and I must be given the opportunity to correct him. When the Conservatives were in government, crime in Scotland was falling and the prison population virtually matched prison capacity. I also point out that we planned the building of Kilmarnock prison. Let us hear no more nonsense from the First Minister on that matter.

On automatic early release, as the facts—not the First Minister's fiction—show, the Conservatives repealed the policy in 1997, but Labour refused to implement that decision. Indeed, the facts are that, on numerous occasions in this Parliament, Labour, the Liberal Democrats and—yes—the SNP have blocked Conservative attempts to end automatic early release. We have had enough of the First Minister's attempts to hide his discomfiture by lashing out at others.

I note that Annabel Goldie neither denied that the system of automatic early release was created in 1993 by the Conservative Party nor refuted that in 1996-97, when the Conservatives were last in government and when Lord James Douglas-Hamilton was the Scottish Office Minister for Health and Home Affairs, there were 98 absconds from the open estate at a time when the population was 290, against 69 in the latest year, when the population was 444. In other words, as a proportion of the open prison estate, there were three times as many absconds then as there are now. I fully accept that, on a range of issues, particularly drugs, the Conservatives have been supportive and responsible. However, I do not believe that a party with such a track record should lecture other parties in the chamber on their approach to criminal justice.

Secondly, on Murdo Fraser's remark that

"It is ludicrous to suggest that Scotland's student population cannot purchase alcohol and it will do nothing to promote Scotland as a place of study",

I have spoken to the Indian authorities, the Chinese authorities and the American authorities, who represent thousands of people who come to Scotland to study, and not one of them has ever mentioned being able to get cheap booze from off-licences as a reason for coming here to study.

I hope that, over the recess, Annabel Goldie, who has taken a responsible attitude towards the drugs problem in Scotland, will be able to persuade her young Turks and the rest of her party to take the same responsible attitude to the booze culture in Scotland.

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Cabinet (Meetings)

I, too, wish Wendy Alexander a speedy recovery.

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S3F-927)

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

Last October, the First Minister wrote to General Than Shwe in Burma, to Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and to 187 other countries to ask for their support for Scotland to be given observer status at the United Nations. How many of those countries wrote back?

We received a number of replies—not from the countries that Nicol Stephen has mentioned, I am delighted to say. Just in case anyone does not remember exactly which countries we are talking about, they are the countries that are covered by the non-proliferation treaty arrangements, all of which the United Kingdom has diplomatic relations with. That is why they were written to. The purpose was to emphasise the view that is held by so many people in Scotland—by people across civic society, in the Scottish Trades Union Congress and in every church and faith group in the land—that it is high time that this country, our country, had weapons of mass destruction removed from its soil.

I can probably help the First Minister. Of those 189 countries, 167 ignored him—in his words,

"I do not have time to go through every single one"—

but 22 of them wrote back. He got replies from Guyana, Cuba, Lesotho, Cameroon and the Vatican City. His Government refuses to tell us what any of them said, but we know that he did not even get a clean sweep of his friends in the arc of prosperity.

Should the First Minister not take the hint, drop the global grandstanding and put more effort into delivering at home? This year, will he write instead to the people he has let down in Scotland: the parents whose children will be in bigger primary school classes than they were in last year; the students who are still waiting for him to write off their debts; and the first-time buyers, who found out only yesterday, in only 23 words, that the grants that they were promised by the Scottish National Party have been cancelled by the Scottish National Party? Will he apologise to them? Will he apologise to Scotland for writing that letter to Robert Mugabe? What will his priority be this autumn? Will it be writing more letters to despots or fixing his broken promises?

I would have hoped that even Nicol Stephen would have welcomed the substantial increases in budget for homestake and the home owners support fund, which are answering the crisis that has arisen across the housing industry in Scotland thanks to the credit crunch and economic factors.

As Nicol Stephen may well remember, the measures that we have taken on housing to build a total of 35,000 houses a year and to tackle the crisis that was ignored by Labour and the Liberal Democrats include the banning of the right to buy for new houses. Why did we do that? We did so because, in the final four years of the Labour-Liberal Democrat Administration, a total of six council houses were built in Scotland. Admittedly, all of them were built in Shetland. Will Nicol Stephen apologise to everyone on the waiting list who has suffered as a result of that deplorable record?

On the countries that Nicol Stephen mentioned, because of the due courtesies that are accorded to diplomatic correspondence, we do not release the details of it. However, I am not certain why Nicol Stephen thought that the Vatican state and its correspondence should be the butt of his attempt at humour. We can probably interpret well what the Vatican state said in its letter to the Scottish Government: it would have put forward its long-standing view that weapons of mass destruction should be outlawed and it probably welcomed the fact that the Government in this country is standing up to the new generation of Trident. I thought that the Liberal party once supported that, but that is far from clear from Nicol Stephen.

I will allow Nicol Stephen a very brief supplementary.

Very briefly, the important point is that the letter that the First Minister sent was not about Zimbabwe. There was not a word in the letter about democracy or repression—it was just me, me, me from Alex Salmond. Does he regret sending it?

Can we have an equally brief answer, please, First Minister?

The letter that I sent to the non-proliferation treaty countries was about nuclear weapons and I will never regret campaigning to remove nuclear weapons from Scottish soil.

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Joint Ministerial Committee

To ask the First Minister whether he will report on matters discussed at this week's meeting of the joint ministerial committee. (S3F-947)

Yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth and I attended the first plenary meeting of the joint ministerial committee in six years. The meeting was chaired by the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, and attended by Paul Murphy, the minister responsible for the JMC and the Secretary of State for Wales, the First Ministers and Deputy First Ministers of Wales and Northern Ireland, and the Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and Scotland. We discussed a range of matters, including the United Kingdom renewable energy strategy and the draft marine bill, and we took stock of relations generally. John Swinney also took the opportunity to raise a number of other issues of concern to Scotland, including attendance allowance, council tax benefit and the lack of Barnett consequentials from the Olympic regeneration spending in London.

The First Minister will be aware that the London Government has raided Scotland's lottery fund to the tune of £184 million to help to meet the spiralling costs of the London Olympics. What progress was made on securing Scotland's share of the £1.5 billion that the London Government intends to spend in the next three years on regeneration projects that are associated with the games? That money could help to offset the damage that has been caused to the many local organisations that are suffering as a result of the cut in lottery funding.

As Michael Matheson indicates, there are two distinct issues. The first is the question of the funding of many facilities for the games through lottery funding and the impact that that is having on lottery funding elsewhere in the country, in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The second aspect is equally serious. The Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and the Northern Ireland Executive feel that the statement of funding policy cannot possibly be interpreted to mean that regeneration funding in London—which, I am pleased to say, is welcome and necessary—should not have a Barnett consequential for funding in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

I cannot say that the Treasury collapsed in a heap at yesterday's meeting of the joint ministerial committee but, nonetheless, for the first time in six years we have re-established a mechanism for adjudication and further discussion, rather than taking a simple no from the London Treasury. I am sure that previous First Ministers would have found that mechanism extremely useful—for example, Henry McLeish would have found it useful when he got a no and was deprived of the attendance allowance money, which has crippled the budget for free personal care in Scotland. I hope that all members will recognise and welcome the resumption of the joint ministerial committees and the opportunity that that gives Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to progress justified claims and demands to ensure parity and fairness for our nations.

Does the First Minister accept that he is becoming more like Don Quixote by the day, by winning victories over people who did not even realise that they were at war and knocking down poor innocent windmills?

Briefly, please.

Does the First Minister accept that, like Don Quixote, he does not know the difference between terms such as "historic" and "hysteric"? Although I am sure that the joint ministerial committee is a convenient forum for slagging off Westminster, would he not be better engaged giving evidence to the Calman commission if he really wants devolution to work effectively?

I am puzzled: I seem to recall that David Mundell MP, the lone Tory ranger in Scotland, welcomed the resumption of the joint ministerial committees. I know that parties sometimes lose their communications, but as there is only one Conservative MP in Scotland, Ted Brocklebank might at least manage to stay in touch with him.

As far as being Don Quixote is concerned, perhaps I should study closely The Scotsman's psychiatric analysis of the Labour Party's new tactics in defeating Alex Salmond. It says:

"The battle of minds during recent Question Times has been repeatedly won by the First Minister, but the Labour Party believes its new psychological evaluation has provided it with crucial insights".

Briefly, please.

The article continues:

"The psychiatrist, who has not been named, identified particular Labour MSPs as enablers whose behaviour actually assisted the SNP leader.

Amongst the biggest culprits are Lord George Foulkes, Duncan McNeil and Andy Kerr."

I could have told the Labour Party that without any payment. That gives me the last opportunity before the recess to say something that I have longed to say. [Interruption.]

Order.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer.

It is proof positive that the Labour Party is seeking psychiatric help.

I will take points of order at the end, Mrs MacDonald.

The First Minister has appeared in the press this morning boasting that he negotiated an arbitration procedure at the joint ministerial committee. Given the level of grudge and grievance that is the daily currency of the Scottish Government, it is no wonder that an arbitration procedure might be required. Will he undertake unequivocally to accept the decisions of such procedures when they find against him, as they inevitably will, given the weakness of so many of his claims?

I am astonished at what Iain Gray says, as he has some Westminster experience and surely must be aware that the major protagonist who has been arguing the case for the reimbursement of Olympic regeneration funding has been Mr Rhodri Morgan, the Labour First Minister of Wales. Is Iain Gray arguing that Rhodri Morgan—or indeed the Northern Ireland Executive or the Scottish Government—would be putting forward a weak case, or is he so thirled to the Labour Party in London that he cannot see the wood for the trees and cannot even support a Scottish argument when the case is overwhelming?

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Marching Season (Public Safety)

To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with local authorities, police forces and march organisers in respect of ensuring public safety during the summer marching season. (S3F-946)

Decisions on marches and parades rest with the relevant local authority. The Scottish Government will support local authorities in working with the police and march organisations to ensure the appropriate balance between the rights of individuals and communities on the one hand, and the rights of the wider community to minimum disruption of daily life on the other.

We have begun a consultation on the changes in the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006 that affect marches and parades, which seeks the views of the police, communities, marching organisations and the relevant local authorities.

The First Minister will be aware that improving the regulation of marches and parades was a key part of the previous Scottish Executive's action plan on tackling sectarianism, which was a package of measures that challenged us all to face up to the reality and seriousness of the issue and which committed Government to act in a number of areas.

Sadly, that momentum has slowed considerably over the past year owing to the lack of a specific, coherent national strategy. There is a need to commit resources, set ambitious targets and meet regularly with all the organisations that were involved in the formulation and implementation of the previous Executive's action plan. Given that all of us in the chamber wish to rid Scotland of the ugly stain of sectarianism, will the First Minister make clear to Parliament today when his Government plans to bring forward its strategy to tackle sectarianism and build on the work of the previous Executive, so that sectarianism is not allowed to slip back into the darkness?

If Bill Butler wishes to appeal on a cross-party basis on this fundamental issue, he should try to do so without making cheap party-political points. This Government has the same interest as the whole Parliament has in tackling the evil of sectarianism in Scottish society.

I point out to Bill Butler one modest but nonetheless significant advance. As he probably knows, the police collect data on the cost of policing marches, but those are not currently available in a standard format. The previously quoted costs have not withstood any rigorous analysis. I am pleased to tell Bill Butler—I know that this is a matter in which he is genuinely interested—that Her Majesty's inspectorate of constabulary for Scotland is now collecting the data. That information will be available in the annual statistical returns for the first time from July 2009. That will replace the anecdotal evidence that we have at present and it will give us firm evidence to support further action on the very matters with which Bill Butler is concerned.

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Homelessness

To ask the First Minister what progress the Scottish Government is making towards meeting the target to end unintentional homelessness by 2012. (S3F-942)

The 2012 target, as enshrined in the Homelessness etc (Scotland) Act 2003, is to abolish the distinction between homeless households that are currently assessed as "priority" or "non-priority" and to ensure that all people who find themselves homeless unintentionally are treated equally. The homelessness monitoring group's report published in March sets out the current progress. Since then, we have agreed joint priorities for action with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, including stronger efforts to prevent homelessness occurring in the first place and greater flexibility to use the private rented sector to address homelessness.

The First Minister will accept that the question of house building is highly relevant to the ability to meet homelessness targets. Is he aware that, in South Lanarkshire in the last year of our Government, 260 houses were planned under the affordable housing investment programme and 334 were built, whereas this year—the first full year of the Scottish National Party Government—only 175 houses are planned? Is he aware that, throughout Scotland, our Government built 8,027 units in our last year, but the SNP Government plans only 6,070 in its first year? Is he not ashamed of the SNP Government's housing record to date? How does he imagine that such figures will allow the implementation of the radical target to eradicate unintentional homelessness by 2012, which was set by our Government?

As Nicola Sturgeon brilliantly set out yesterday in her statement on housing, the increased funds for the homestake initiative and the increased funds for the home owners support fund answer many aspects of the current housing crisis in Scotland.

I draw to Robert Brown's attention the real record of the Labour-Liberal Administration over the past few years. As I said, six council houses were built in four years—admittedly, all of them were in Shetland. This year, the SNP-controlled West Lothian Council alone has announced plans for 700 new houses over three phases. Incidentally, given that the Liberal party chose to support Labour over eight years in which homelessness and the housing crisis increased in Scotland every single year, it might remember the Labour target of 30,000 new homes—more than 7,000 a year—which was in the Labour manifesto of 1999. Six months later, Wendy Alexander changed that to 18,000 over three years—6,000 a year. The average overall, for which the Liberal party has joint and several responsibility, was 4,200 a year. As we said yesterday, we are going to surpass that comfortably and, at last, provide a realistic answer to the homelessness crisis in Scotland, which was long ignored by the previous Administration.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I refer to rule 13.7.7 in the standing orders, which states:

"A member asking a question shall, in asking the question, not depart from the terms of the question."

I submit that there is an implicit acceptance in that of the need for the answer also to be relevant.

I happen to have agreed with the First Minister in his initial answer to the initial question from Nicol Stephen. However, I regret to say that, thereafter, the First Minister departed from the script and from the terms of the standing orders. Will you have a word with the leaders of the parties in here, so that next year's question times are not so abused?

I hear your suggestion, Ms MacDonald but, as you well know, that matter does not come under the standing orders.