Engagements
To ask the First Minister what engagements she has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-03194)
Later today I have engagements to take forward the Government’s programme for Scotland. The Government is also today setting out details of the £379 million contribution that we are making to a £504 million funding package to boost economic growth in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire.
The Labour Party very much welcomes that investment.
The national health service is our most precious public institution. The dedicated staff who work in it help to bring us into this world and they care for us in our time of need. The delivery of NHS services depends on having motivated and well-supported staff. This week, the scale of the pressure on our NHS because of Scottish National Party cuts and mismanagement was exposed. The Royal College of General Practitioners warned of a deepening GP crisis and the Royal College of Nursing said that there needs to be a change in the health service—and quickly.
Our NHS is at breaking point. Hardworking, loyal staff are crying out for help. Will the First Minister tell me how many days were lost in our NHS last year due to staff stress?
I agree that the NHS is our most valued, cherished and precious public service. I also agree that the service could not and would not be delivered without the dedication and the contribution of the staff who work in it. That is why I am very proud that since this Government took office in 2007 the number of people working in our health service has increased by 10,500.
Next year we are increasing the NHS’s budget by £500 million. As well as that investment, we have set out very detailed plans about how we want to reshape and reform the NHS. We want to build up social care—£250 million of that investment will be put into increasing social care—and we want to improve primary and community care to keep people out of hospital. We have planned five new elective treatment centres, so that when people do have to go into hospital they can get that care quickly and efficiently.
Kezia Dugdale mentioned comments from the Royal College of General Practitioners and the RCN, and we listen very carefully to what those organisations have to say. I note that she omitted to mention yesterday’s comments from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine. It said that the United Kingdom has the best performing accident and emergency services in the world and that Scotland has the best performing A and E services in the United Kingdom. We should say a massive thank you to NHS staff for that.
I asked the First Minister about the stress that NHS staff are under and she just clapped herself on the back. Yet again, she gave me a long response that was not an answer to the question that I asked.
Let me give her the answer. Figures obtained by Scottish Labour showed that last year, NHS staff lost more than 287,000 days because of stress. That is an increase of 21 per cent compared to just two years ago. The issue really matters, because it puts vital NHS services that are facing SNP cuts under even more pressure.
One of those services is the children’s ward at St John’s hospital in Livingston, which is currently under review and is potentially under threat of closure. The First Minister will tell us that that is a decision for the health board, but she has overruled officials before and she should do so again now. My constituents want a simple yes or no in answer to this question: can the First Minister confirm, once and for all, that she will not allow the children’s ward at St John’s to be either closed or downgraded?
On the point about stress among people who work in our NHS, I started my answer to Kezia Dugdale by recognising the contribution of those who work in our NHS. I also said—and this is a point that she chose to ignore—that since this Government took office there has been an increase of 10,500 in the number of people working in our NHS.
Yet again, we have a divide in this Parliament between a Labour Party whose members come here and present what they describe as problems and an SNP Government that is getting on with the job of delivering the solutions for our NHS and other public services in Scotland.
On St John’s hospital, it is interesting that in her first question Kezia Dugdale asked me to listen to the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing, to which I replied that we always do, but in her second question she asked me to say now, before an independent review has concluded, that I will ignore any recommendations from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, which is carrying out the independent review that she talked about.
I will take absolutely no lectures from Scottish Labour when it comes to St John’s hospital in Livingston, because when I took office as health secretary in 2007 Labour had taken away from St John’s hospital services such as trauma orthopaedics and emergency surgery, and there were concerns locally that St John’s would be downgraded from being an acute hospital and possibly even closed.
Rubbish!
Order.
Since then, this Government has protected A and E services at St John’s, with consultant cover extended. We have invested £3 million in a new magnetic resonance imaging scanner at St John’s. We have invested £7 million in capital funding for short-stay elective surgery. There has been a £300,000 investment in respiratory services at St John’s. We have refurbished the labour ward and the special care baby unit. We opened a new laboratory medicine training school. We have invested £3.3 million in an endoscopy unit. We have opened a regional eating disorders unit—and, of course, one of the five new elective treatment centres that we plan over the next parliamentary session is planned to be at St John’s hospital.
This Government has protected St John’s hospital from the cuts that were imposed on it by the former Labour Administration. [Interruption.]
Order.
If the First Minister is so good at protecting services at St John’s, why cannot she protect the children’s ward? It is that simple. Perhaps the truth is that St John’s is being not reviewed or closed but reprofiled.
Try a bit harder!
Order.
The reprofiler-in-chief is carping from the sidelines.
People can see that this Government is pulling the wool over their eyes. Just this week emails that my colleague Neil Findlay uncovered revealed that the health secretary has been pressurising officials to delay a decision on St John’s until after the election. Now we know that the First Minister will not guarantee that the children’s ward will stay open.
Kicking unpopular decisions into the long grass is becoming a hallmark of this Government, and not just in the Lothians. We know that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde is preparing for budget cuts of up to £60 million, which will include the closure of services and cuts to staff numbers.
The First Minister has it in her power to stop that happening. She can save the Lightburn hospital and protect the children’s ward at the Royal Alexandra hospital. She can secure emergency care at the Vale of Leven district general hospital and protect NHS staff numbers in Glasgow. Will the First Minister give a 100 per cent guarantee, right now, that all those services will be protected in their current form?
I hate to be the bearer of more bad news—at least, it is bad news for Kezia Dugdale—but I happen to have been the health secretary who saved Lightburn hospital in Glasgow. That is possibly one of the many facts that has escaped Kezia Dugdale’s preparation for today’s First Minister’s questions.
I can give Kezia Dugdale a tip. It is really good, when asking questions, to be able to adapt the questions in response to the detailed factual answers. The truth of the matter is that this is the Government that has protected St John’s hospital from the cuts to it that were planned by the last Labour Administration. We will go on taking the decisions that protect St John’s hospital and hospitals around our country.
This time last week, if memory serves, Kezia Dugdale was asking me to invest more money in local authorities. Today, she is asking us to put more money into the national health service. She is yet to tell us where any of that extra money will come from. Therefore, I issue an open invitation to her. I am holding the draft budget—I stress that it is a draft document. I am happy to pass it to Kezia Dugdale and if she wants to send it back to me with marks to show where Labour wants to introduce cuts in the budget to get the extra money that it keeps talking about, I will be happy to listen to her.
The fact of the matter is that we do not get any ideas from Kezia Dugdale and Labour; we just get whinging from the sidelines. The focus group report that was published this week, which Labour tried to suppress—[Interruption.]
Order.
It said: “Voters recall Labour”—[Interruption.]
Order.
It is okay, Presiding Officer. I was not going to quote the part that says:
“For Scottish voters, Labour is indistinguishable from the Conservatives—just less competent”.
I was going to quote this part:
“Voters recall Labour trotting out a long list of policies, with no conviction that they could deliver”.
Nothing has changed. That shower is not fit for opposition, let alone government.
On the first focus group quote that the First Minister read out, the only person acting like a Tory in the chamber this week is John Swinney, who is enforcing austerity on councils across Scotland. [Interruption.]
Order.
Again, in response to a specific question about services in our hospitals across the country, there was no direct commitment to save those services. That will be noted by everyone.
The First Minister had the chance to provide much-needed relief to thousands of staff and families across the country. She could have guaranteed that the proposed cuts to NHS services would not take place, but she did not do that. Let that message go out to people across the Lothians, to patients in Glasgow and in Paisley, to families in Dunbartonshire and to people the length and breadth of this country. Is it not the case that, although the SNP says that it will protect the NHS, the reality is that it is threatening our local services with the axe?
Yet again, we have from Labour whinging about what, in its view, the SNP is doing wrong, with no concrete proposals about what we need to do differently.
In a few weeks’ time, John Swinney is going to ask Parliament to vote for a budget that delivers £500 million of extra funding to the NHS next year. For the first time, the budget for the health portfolio is going to reach £13 billion—I think that, when we took office, it was £9 billion. There are 10,500 more people working today in our NHS. We have protected local services that Labour was planning to close. Does anyone remember the Monklands and Ayr accident and emergency units that were facing the axe under Labour but which are open and treating patients today because this SNP Government saved them?
I am more than happy to put the health record of this Government to the people of Scotland in a couple of months’ time and ask them to judge it against the woeful record and the woeful present performance of this Labour Opposition.
Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)
To ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S4F-03192)
No plans at present.
The long-anticipated Aberdeen city region deal will be signed today, paving the way for the package of £250 million investment in the Aberdeenshire economy. It is good to see the north-east getting the help that it needs to support jobs. I welcome today’s deal and hope that it holds out a brighter future for both the city and the shire.
On top of that, the Scottish Government has announced extra infrastructure funding, including £200 million to increase capacity on key rail links between Aberdeen and the central belt. That work has been on the books since 2007—the entire lifetime of the current Scottish Government. I ask the First Minister to confirm that the money is new, when it is being released and when the work will be carried out.
All the money that we have announced today will be available to Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, to benefit those areas, over the same timescale as the city deal. To recap, a funding package of £504 million has been provided for Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire today, £125 million of which is coming from the United Kingdom Government—we are very grateful for that—and £379 million of which is coming from the Scottish Government.
There are many transport projects that we want to undertake, but we must prioritise them and find the money for them. Today, we are committing the money for the improvements that will speed up rail links between the central belt and Aberdeen. I hope that Ruth Davidson will warmly, and without any equivocation, welcome that. In addition, we are announcing money for trunk road funding, including funding for the Laurencekirk junction, which has been required for a long time. We are also giving to Aberdeen certainty, which other councils do not have, about its housing investment over the next five years, and we are announcing money for housing infrastructure and additional money to help with digital connections in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. That is a good package.
I will be in Aberdeen on Monday, making further announcements about how the Scottish Government will focus on helping the oil and gas sector in particular.
Our party is, and always has been, for healthy competition. Therefore, I am delighted to see the Scottish Government trying to outdo the UK Government today. It is important that our two Governments work together, and this is exactly the kind of partnership that I believe most people in Scotland want to see.
However, I cannot let the moment pass without raising one key point. If the First Minister had had her way, right now we would be eight weeks away from separation. I ask her to tell us, in all honesty, what situation she thinks is better for Scotland today: the one that we have, with our two Governments, with all their resource, stepping in to support the north-east at this time; or the one that she hoped for, preparing for a life outside the UK, with oil at $30 a barrel and Scotland’s finances about to be blown to pieces?
There is no difficulty in answering that question. I think that this Government, this Parliament and this country having all the powers that we need to grow our economy is by far the better position for us to be in.
Given that the Prime Minister is going to be in Aberdeen today, perhaps this is a moment that I cannot let pass either. Understandably, there is a lot of focus on what the yes campaign said about oil during the referendum. However, to my deep regret, the yes campaign did not win the referendum—the no campaign won the referendum. Therefore, perhaps we should look at what the no campaign said about oil during the referendum. In February 2014, David Cameron promised a “£200 billion oil boom” if Scotland voted no. Maybe when he is in Aberdeen this afternoon he can tell us what happened to that money. [Interruption.]
Order. I have two constituency supplementary questions.
Without knowing about the welcome additional funding from the Scottish Government, The Press and Journal today described the £250 million Aberdeen city region deal as slightly underwhelming. It amounts to only about a third of the investment that has gone into the Aberdeen western peripheral route. Does the First Minister share my view that Aberdeen deserves more from the UK Government than the £125 million that has been allocated, particularly considering that the Treasury has benefited from the more than £300,000 million of North Sea oil revenues that have flowed from Aberdeen to London?
Kevin Stewart makes a very good point indeed. Nevertheless, today is a good day for the north-east of Scotland. As I have said, I welcome the city deal agreement, which is seeing the Scottish and the UK Government commit £125 million to support infrastructure and innovation in the north-east. However, I know that Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire asked for more significant investment than that, which is why the Scottish Government has decided to commit, and today confirmed, £254 million of additional support for key infrastructure in the north-east. Of course, as I have already said, that brings the total amount of Scottish Government support announced for the north-east today to £379 million. The Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Investment and Cities invited the UK Government to match that additional commitment, and we will continue to discuss with it increasing its contribution.
As members will be aware, earlier this week the Cabinet discussed the challenges facing the north-east. I will make further commitments to support the industry when I visit Aberdeen on Monday.
The First Minister will be aware of the announcement made yesterday by Texas Instruments that it intends to cease production at its Greenock plant and relocate to America, Japan and Germany, with a potential loss of 365 jobs. I am sure that the First Minister will agree that that would be an undeserved fate for the highly skilled and committed workforce at the plant and, indeed, for our already fragile Inverclyde economy. A glimmer of hope of course exists, in that we still have time to attract a new owner to the plant. Will the First Minister take this opportunity to commit the Scottish Government and its agencies to playing a full role in the task force that was set up yesterday by Inverclyde Council leader, Stephen McCabe, so that we can attract a new owner to secure those jobs and address the underlying fragility of the Inverclyde economy?
Yes, I will give those commitments in full. I appreciate that this will be an extremely worrying time for employees of Texas Instruments and their families. As Duncan McNeil rightly points out, Texas Instruments has made it clear that it wants to sell the plant as a going concern, to save as many of the jobs as possible. It has also made it clear that, in any event, it does not anticipate any jobs being lost until late 2017. That means that we have an important window of opportunity to work with the company to do everything that we can to help to find a buyer who will maintain jobs in Greenock.
Scottish Enterprise is fully engaged. It will work with the company to explore all possible options for supporting the business and retaining jobs. The Scottish Government will be fully engaged in that work as well. I can tell members that Fergus Ewing has today written to the leader of Inverclyde Council saying that the Scottish Government will support the task force in any way that we can and suggesting a meeting on Monday of next week. We will do everything that we can to preserve the company and the jobs in it. In that regard, the Government and our agencies will leave no stone unturned.
Climate Change (Spending)
To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the Committee on Climate Change’s concerns that its spending on climate change is set to be reduced in 2016-17. (S4F-03202)
We continue to spend significant sums on climate change mitigation, with budgets totalling more than £900 million over two years supporting progress towards our world-leading targets. Of course, it is a widely recognised fact that the United Kingdom Government is hampering the renewable energy sector and putting at risk millions of pounds of investment in the Scottish and UK economies. If the UK Government had kept its previous commitments, the viability of many projects would not now be in question and Scottish Government support would have been maintained. In addition, the UK Government’s decision to cut the green deal home improvement fund has led directly to a £15 million cut in consequential support for energy efficiency. The Scottish Government will continue to argue against the UK changes to energy policy, as we have done consistently. Of course, across other areas, we have seen an overall increase in our budgets of £13.3 million.
The question was actually about the Scottish budget. Everyone who has looked at the First Minister’s budget can see that climate change funding has been hammered, with £50 million less in 2016. This is not the first time that the green energy budget has been the victim. In 2013, we were told that money was released for other projects; in 2015, we were told that funds were reallocated to other priorities; and, in 2014, the budget was not cut, it was “reprofiled”. When the First Minister got off the plane from Paris and said that the rest of the world should be like her, did she want them to hammer their climate change budgets, too?
If Jim Hume had been listening, he would have heard that my answer was actually about the Scottish Government budget. We cannot spend money on things that UK energy policy does not allow us to spend money on and if we exclude the changes to the Scottish Government budget that have been necessitated by the changes to UK energy policy, we see that Scottish Government budgets on climate change have increased by £13.3 million. That is the reality.
I hope that, notwithstanding his party’s previous coalition with the Conservative Party, Jim Hume will join the Scottish Government in arguing that the UK Government’s changes to energy policy are wrong-headed. They harm our ability to meet climate change targets and to discharge our obligations to the environment, but they also harm not only the Scottish economy but the UK economy. I look forward to having his support in future in that regard.
The First Minister once again describes Scotland’s targets as world leading but the world is leading from a 2°C threshold to a 1.5°C threshold in the Paris agreement—the world is leading towards greater ambition and the Scottish budget seems to be leading in the other direction. How on earth can we take that seriously?
As I pointed out, that is not the case: if we take out the impacts of UK Government policy, we are increasing our commitment to the environment and to meeting climate change targets. I am absolutely convinced that we have a responsibility to do that. Interestingly, when I was in Paris, it was not only I who talked about not only Scotland’s targets but its performance being world leading; other countries described Scotland’s targets and performance in that way.
I recognise that we have a responsibility to intensify and accelerate our work over the lifetime of the next session of Parliament if we are to play our part in taking the world to a more ambitious place on climate change. I am determined, as are my fellow ministers, that we do exactly that.
Fiscal Framework
To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Government will provide an update on discussions on the fiscal framework. (S4F-03203)
The Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Constitution and Economy met the Treasury again to discuss the fiscal framework last week. Discussions between our respective officials have been on-going all this week and the Deputy First Minister will meet the Chief Secretary to the Treasury again next week to try to get for Scotland a fair deal on the fiscal framework.
I say again that I want a deal on the fiscal framework. I want Scotland to get the additional powers that were promised to it and I will not, as First Minister, sign up to an agreement that is unfair to the people of Scotland.
Does the First Minister agree that it is crucial to get the balance right in the negotiations in order to ensure that the Smith principle of no detriment to Scotland or to the rest of the United Kingdom is embedded in the fiscal framework? Does she share my astonishment that Tory MSPs have been urging her to sign a deal regardless of whether it is good for Scotland, which shows once again that the Tories always put London’s interests first, rather than the interests of the people of Scotland?
Yes—I agree with that. Let me make it clear that the Scottish Government is working in good faith to try to deliver a deal that is fair to Scotland—and, indeed, fair to the UK—on issues such as the block-grant adjustment, set-up costs, capital borrowing and dispute resolution. All those issues are important and we will not sign up to a deal that systematically cuts Scotland’s budget regardless of anything that this Government does or future Scottish Governments do. The big question now is whether the Tory Government in London will also act in good faith to try to get that deal.
I am not sure that I am astonished that Tory MSPs are asking us to sign up to a deal that will not be good for Scotland. However, I have to say that I am pretty aghast that Labour appears also to be asking us to do that. The negotiation is between the Scottish Government and the Treasury: it is astounding how quickly Scottish Labour defaults to taking the side of the Tory Treasury. It seems that the better together alliance is alive and well.
Foster Carers (Allowance)
To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that every foster carer receives a minimum allowance. (S4F-03193)
We are planning a national review group with representatives from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, Social Work Scotland and the Fostering Network. The group will agree a methodology for calculating allowances based on the needs of children who are living in foster care and kinship care, what the minimum rates of allowance will be and a suitable timetable for their introduction. The group’s work will begin early this year and will conclude as soon as possible. The implementation of a new system will, of course, take account of any new welfare powers that accrue to the Scottish Parliament.
As a preliminary step towards a fair and transparent system of allowances for kinship carers and foster carers, we are providing £10.1 million of funding per year now to councils to ensure that kinship care allowances are set at the same level as foster care allowances. That will improve the lives of around 5,200 children.
I thank the First Minister for her answer.
Research that was published last week by the Fostering Network Scotland revealed wide variation from one Scottish local authority to the next in the payments that are received by foster carers. Allowances vary by as much as £127.31 a week for a child, and 88 per cent of Scottish local authorities pay less than £159 a week, which is the national minimum allowance for foster carers in Wales. Last year, more than half the local authorities in Scotland froze fostering allowances, which resulted in a real-terms cut.
It is nine years since the Scottish Government first proposed to develop a national minimum allowance. I hear its promises today, but nine years on, foster carers in Scotland remain short-changed compared to those in the rest of the United Kingdom, as 5,000 children a year are looked after without the security of a national minimum allowance. Foster carers need more than promises.
We need a question.
Will the First Minister act now to end the postcode lottery and to deliver a fair deal for Scotland’s foster carers?
It might interest Cara Hilton to know that one of the local authorities that pays under £100 a week is Fife Council, which is a Labour minority council.
However, the key issue is more important here. Scottish Government guidance already recommends that councils use the Fostering Network’s annually reviewed recommended minimum allowances. The Fostering Network and, indeed, Cara Hilton are right to raise this issue. We need a national level of caring allowances so that foster carers and kinship carers are treated fairly in every part of Scotland. That is why the work that I have described is so important. I hope that it has the full support of Cara Hilton and the rest of the Parliament.
Cadet Forces
To ask the First Minister what role the Scottish Government considers that cadet forces play in society. (S4F-03196)
In Scotland, there is a long tradition of army cadets making a contribution to youth work. That work provides structure, support, and interesting and challenging activities for those who choose to get involved. The cadet forces in Scotland, along with other uniformed organisations, contribute to implementation of the national youth work strategy. We note and welcome the contribution that the army cadet forces that are located in communities across Scotland make to improving the skills and ability of our young people.
Given that very positive reply, will the First Minister confirm that the completely unacceptable description of the United Kingdom cadet recruitment process as “cannon fodder”—which so angered all of our cadet forces—is not the official view of the Scottish Government? Has she asked the spokesman who made those comments to apologise?
As Liz Smith knows, I immediately said that that was not appropriate language to use about our cadet forces. I have made that clear to anybody and everybody who is willing to listen, and I do so again.
As I said in my answer, we appreciate the contribution that cadet forces make; all of us across the chamber appreciate very deeply the contribution that all of our armed forces make to Scotland, and to keeping us all safe.
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