Plenary, 27 Feb 2003

Meeting date: Thursday, February 27, 2003

Official Report 656KB pdf

---

First Minister's Question Time

---

SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

---

Prime Minister (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he next plans to meet the Prime Minister and what issues he intends to raise. (S1F-2536)

I expect to speak regularly with the Prime Minister over the coming weeks. We will discuss a wide range of issues.

On 14 January, the First Minister said:

"I don't make promises I can't keep".

Four years ago, the people of Scotland were promised that the Labour party would

"bring down waiting lists by at least 10,000 … and then drive them down further".

Today, four years on, waiting lists have not fallen by 10,000; instead, they have increased by 10,000. How does the First Minister reconcile his statement,

"I don't make promises I can't keep",

with that shocking record on hospital waiting lists?

Because I am also very honest about when we need to change the policies and the targets that we have set out. It is absolutely right and proper that our health service policies and priorities focus on what matters most to patients, which is the time that they have to wait. As a result, we have focused step by step on real improvements to tackle key killer diseases such as heart disease, cancer and strokes. We have also focused on those who have had to wait the longest for their in-patient appointments, and between September and December last year managed to bring those figures down by a huge proportion. We will now move on to tackle out-patient appointments, because there is no point in bringing down in-patient waiting times if out-patient waiting times are still far too long. That is the next step and, step by step, we will ensure that the national health service gets better.

That was undoubtedly an admission of failure on waiting lists by the First Minister.

As the First Minister has moved the ground on to waiting times, we should now address that issue. Four years ago, the people were promised that the Labour party would

"bring down the time that patients have to wait to see a hospital consultant".

There were no ifs, no buts and no concentration on those who wait the longest. Instead, there was a simple promise to bring down the time that people wait to see a consultant. Four years ago, it took 46 days to see a hospital consultant. Today, after four years of this Administration and after all the money that has been spent, the waiting time to see a hospital consultant is not 46 days, but 57 days.

The First Minister indicated disagreement.

The First Minister shakes his head. However, the information is from the Government statistics database and was published this morning. If the First Minister cannot read the statistics, how can he hope to get in charge of the problem? That is the issue. Once again, I ask the First Minister how he can reconcile his statement,

"I don't make promises I can't keep",

with his failure to cut waiting times.

Apparently, because I can count. As I have tried to explain to Mr Swinney before, a median is not a mean or an average. The median is the mid-point; if we bring down the longest waiting times in the health service—which we are doing—the median will move upwards. I am happy to explain that basic mathematical fact to Mr Swinney in writing any day of the week.

We must deal with the most important issues in our health service. Since I became First Minister and Malcolm Chisholm became the Minister for Health and Community Care, we have focused firmly on waiting times. What has happened? The waiting times for heart disease, stroke and cancer and for those who are waiting longest in our health service have come right down. What will happen next? I assure Mr Swinney that the waiting times for out-patients will also come down. That way we will get the better health service that Scotland wants and needs.

The only promise that the First Minister keeps is that he will keep on changing the goalposts as far as his promises to the people are concerned.

Let us look at the First Minister's record on waiting times. We should be fair to him: waiting times have come down in Lothian University Hospitals NHS Trust. However, that is only one trust. In Yorkhill NHS Trust—a children's hospital—waiting times have risen from 62 to 100 days. In Ayrshire and Arran Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, the times are up; in West Lothian Healthcare NHS Trust, they are up; in Tayside University Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; in South Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; in North Glasgow University Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; in Grampian University Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; in Forth Valley Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; in Fife Acute Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; in Dumfries and Galloway Acute and Maternity Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; in the Borders General Hospitals NHS Trust, they are up; and they are up in Argyll and Clyde Acute Hospitals NHS Trust.

Finally, let us get to Lanarkshire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust—in the constituency and community that the First Minister represents. Waiting times there have gone up from 51 days to a shocking 80 days as a result of the current Administration. Is it not time that he started being honest with the people about his failure to deliver on the health service and made way for a Government that will get waiting times down?

I will not waste your time, Presiding Officer, by trying to explain "median" to Mr Swinney again. I will do that happily on another occasion. I am happy to quote some statistics. I visited Mr Swinney's area of Tayside very recently and I studied carefully what has happened there. Tayside Health Board was the health board that was in the most serious difficulties in the country just two short years ago.

On 31 December 2000, 415 people were waiting more than nine months for in-patient or day-case treatment in NHS Tayside. By December 2002, that was down to 13 people. The number of Tayside residents with a guarantee waiting for more than six months for in-patient day-case treatment was 198 a year ago and 136 today. Real people are being treated by real doctors and real nurses in NHS Tayside and that is making a real difference. That is not all in NHS Tayside. I referred only to the people who are being treated by consultants. What about the 78 one-stop clinics in NHS Tayside where people are being treated by nurses rather than doctors for all kinds of conditions? What about the new paramedics in Angus who are managing to deal on the spot with heart attacks with clot-busting drugs at the scene? Those are the changes that are taking place in our health service.

When I travel throughout Scotland to Tayside, to Edinburgh—where I visited Edinburgh royal infirmary two weeks ago—to my local brand new hospital, Wishaw general hospital, to Crosshouse hospital in Ayrshire and to many other places in Scotland, I see good doctors and good nurses doing new things that they have never done before, using new technology and new procedures. They are proud of what they are doing and they wish that people in this Parliament would back them up instead of trying to run them down. That is what we should be doing, that is what Malcolm Chisholm will be doing and that is what we will be doing in the months ahead.

---

Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)

To ask the—

Own goal again, Mr Swinney.

Thank you, Mr McNeil.

To ask the First Minister when he last met the Secretary of State—[Interruption.]

Order. We are on question 2 now.

Yes, thank you. We are coming to the good bit.

To ask the First Minister when he last met the Secretary of State for Scotland and what issues were discussed. (S1F-2533)

I last spoke to the Secretary of State for Scotland earlier this week and we discussed a very interesting range of issues.

Good. I hope that one of the interesting issues that they discussed was the fact that, since 1997, taxes have increased by the equivalent of £1,900 a year for every man, woman and child in Scotland. From April, the average worker will be paying another £200 a year out of his pay packet as a result of the national insurance increase. Despite the extra £1.5 billion of taxpayers' money being spent on health in Scotland, today there are 19,000 more people waiting for treatment than when the Executive came to power in 1999. Never mind the averages or medians that so troubled Mr Swinney and the First Minister, let us consider basic facts about out-patient appointments. In June 1997, 74 per cent of people were seen within nine weeks and that has now fallen to barely 52 per cent. Does the First Minister acknowledge that we have all paid the higher taxes? In which case, where are the better services?

As I was saying in my final answer to Mr Swinney, the evidence of those better services is there for anyone who wishes to visit not only our hospitals, but our clinics, doctors' surgeries and other health facilities throughout Scotland. When I go to Edinburgh royal infirmary, I might meet an old lady who is there for three days for her hip operation, rather than the four or five weeks for which she might have been in hospital in the past. In Tayside, I give not only the example of Angus paramedics, but the example of the accident and emergency unit in Perth sending information to Ninewells hospital in order to get analysis to be able to treat on the spot. All those new procedures are taking place. They might not show up in the statistics, but they show up in the reality of the lives of the people who benefit from them. People throughout Scotland are being treated more quickly, more effectively and with higher-quality procedures and better equipment than ever before. I am proud of that health service and I wish that more people in the Parliament were too.

I am very proud of the health service, because one of the improvements effected as a result of the Conservative hospital-building programme is that there are brand new hospitals such as the one in the First Minister's constituency and the Edinburgh royal infirmary, which he initiated. Instead of taking credit all the time for the hospitals that are open, the First Minister might be as gracious as I am, and acknowledge the origins of that programme and the fact that it lies in my party's commitment to the NHS in Scotland.

To return to the central point about the health white paper that was unveiled this morning, spending has gone up a considerable amount since 1997—some 34 per cent. However, the most recent figures show that the number of patients treated off the waiting list has gone down by 6 per cent. In other words, taxes and spending are up, and the number of treatments down. That demonstrates to me—and to anyone else who has observed what has happened in the health service in the past five years—that the Executive's centralising agenda has patently failed. The health plan that we got this morning is more of the same, with the abolition of local hospital trusts. Is it not about time that the First Minister faced the facts of those failings and that, instead of pursuing his current route, he and the Executive devolved real power down to local general practitioners and hospitals and stopped the centralised, bureaucratic meddling?

It is simply not true to say that less treatment is taking place in the health service today than was the case years ago. In reality, there are fewer consultant-led treatments, because more and more treatments—thousands daily, all over Scotland—are led by nurses. Those nurses now have the skills, abilities, and opportunities to carry out those treatments more locally, so that patients get a better service in the local community rather than having to travel elsewhere. That is the benefit of a well-equipped, modern health service whose trained staff work more flexibly than ever before. That benefit is resulting in more treatment, not less, and is felt by patients right across Scotland.

---

Renewable Energy

To ask the First Minister what impact the United Kingdom energy white paper will have on the Scottish Executive's renewable energy targets. (S1F-2547)

The emphasis in the white paper on reducing carbon emissions, increasing energy efficiency and promoting renewable energy will provide a positive context for our efforts in Scotland to increase the generation of renewable energy. In Scotland, we are on course to achieve our current target of generating 18 per cent of Scotland's electricity needs from renewable sources by 2010. We have consulted on increasing that target to 40 per cent by 2020, and we will respond to that consultation in due course.

Britain was in the vanguard of wind and wave technology in the 1980s, but we blew it on wind technology for a variety of reasons, including pressure from vested interests that did not want renewable energy to develop. Will the First Minister press Westminster colleagues for long-term political commitment to investing in renewable energy and, given that increasing renewable energy depends in part on being able to market it, sorting out trading arrangements and upgrading the national grid?

It is vital that we take a wide range of steps, not only to secure the use and generation of more renewable energy in Scotland but to make that energy accessible, on a basis of equality, to people in urban and rural communities throughout Scotland. We must also secure the economic benefits from seizing the opportunities in renewable energy and exporting that energy, not just south of the border but further afield. That is why renewable energy is not just at the centre of our environmental objectives for Scotland but a key resource to boost Scotland's economy in the future.

Does the First Minister agree that one of the biggest barriers to exploiting Scotland's massive potential for marine renewable technology is the weakness in the grid referred to by Nora Radcliffe? Disappointingly, but not surprisingly, the energy white paper that came out this week makes no specific mention of that, even though it is the responsibility of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Countries such as Wales, Spain and Portugal are getting ahead of us in the development of marine renewable technology. Will the First Minister ensure that the United Kingdom Government gets the message that addressing the matter is vital in order to secure a sustainable economic future for Scotland? We cannot miss out on the kind of wealth creation and jobs bonanza that happened in Denmark when it got wind. [Laughter.]

I am tempted to say something about that, but I will not. I want to make two points. First, in recent weeks, the UK Government has made clear its support for and interest in improvements to the national grid. At another time, I think that there will be appropriate announcements that indicate its support for those improvements. We have regular discussions with the UK Government about the matter, and it knows how important the matter is for Scotland and the rest of the UK.

Secondly, Mr Crawford takes a principled stand on such issues but would be unable to implement the necessary policies, as he would not want a UK Government that would pay for such policies in the first place. In Scotland, we need not only the right policies but the right framework that gives us not only access inside Scotland to increased use of renewables, but access across the border and the ability to use the whole UK market as a springboard for sending renewables into Europe.

I welcome the First Minister's reply. Does he agree that renewables such as solar heating, photovoltaics and biomass open up new ways of tackling fuel poverty and that our climate change commitments can also be tackled when they are used? Will he commit the Scottish Executive to taking the lead in promoting the use of such renewables by giving encouragement to those who are involved in regenerating and building new housing projects throughout Scotland?

The simple answer is yes. It is vital not just that we have a national strategy, but that we bed that strategy into all that we do. One of our key responsibilities is to support those new housing projects and the policies that are being implemented. We are determined to ensure that our target of a more renewable and sustainable Scotland is at the heart of our policies.

---

Planning Process (Local Opinion)

To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Executive is taking to ensure that the views of local people are properly taken into account during the planning process. (S1F-2540)

We firmly believe that public involvement in the planning system must be improved. We have carried out a review of existing arrangements for enabling people to become involved in planning issues and we will shortly publish a white paper.

Is the First Minister aware that my constituents in Morningside in Newmains think that existing regulations fall far short of what is required? In Morningside, a company called H J Banks is blasting at its opencast site, which has resulted in seven properties sustaining damage. Is it acceptable for the company to insist that such damage is unrelated to its activities? Is it appropriate for the company to hide behind planning regulations, even when its actions are clearly causing damage to properties? Does he agree that H J Banks should cease all blasting until it is clear that the cause of any damage to the properties is completely unrelated to its activities?

I understood that the company had ceased blasting. If it has not, it certainly should do so, if North Lanarkshire Council tells it to do so. It is right and proper that the council should do what I understand it has agreed to do, which is to investigate claims that the blasting is affecting the quality of life in local communities—it would certainly have my full support in doing so. However, the matter is currently one for the local authority to pursue—it is the planning authority and must use its powers to ensure that the company adheres to the strict planning conditions that it was given.

Does the First Minister believe that the introduction of third-party rights of appeal would help to build public confidence in the planning process?

There is an important debate about the need for and demands of individuals and local communities to have more say in planning decisions—in particular, whether they should have an equal say with those who currently have the right of appeal. On the other side, those responsible for some of the larger applications do not wish to see the planning system clogged up with too many appeals and delays. That is the fine line on which we must try to travel. I am keen to see improvements in our planning system to give local communities more of a say. The system must also be efficient, quick, effective and well resourced so that businesses, housing developers and individuals can have their planning applications dealt with properly. In due course we will respond to that question in a policy paper.

Is the First Minister aware that the village of Fauldhouse potentially faces 15 applications for opencast, landfill and quarrying? The scale of that per head of population is the equivalent of 1,500 applications surrounding Edinburgh. Given that one of the applications is for opencasting in North Lanarkshire and Fauldhouse is in West Lothian, what does the First Minister anticipate will be in the white paper to cover situations in which local people feel disfranchised and do not achieve the environmental justice that they deserve?

I believe strongly that the views of local people should be taken into account in those circumstances. I also believe that, where it is appropriate, a local decision on those matters is the right way ahead. In those circumstances, where one local authority's decision can impact on the residents of another local authority, I feel that it is appropriate—although I would not wish to tell a local authority exactly how to conduct its business—that local authorities share information, take account of each other's views and at all times have the views of the community uppermost in their minds when they take those balanced decisions.