Moving Scotland Forward
The next item of business is a debate on motion S3M-2001, in the name of Nicola Sturgeon, on moving Scotland forward.
I warmly welcome the opportunity to debate how the Scottish National Party Government is moving Scotland forward. Our actions are already making Scotland a wealthier, greener, healthier, safer and smarter nation. The way in which we work is making the Government and public services more open and accountable.
I am proud to say that our record in our first 12 months in office is one of solid achievement. I know how much Opposition members enjoy hearing about that, so I will begin by highlighting just a few of those achievements. We have reduced business rates for 150,000 small businesses throughout Scotland. We have abolished bridge tolls, invested in the Dundee institute for life sciences and established the Council of Economic Advisers. We have frozen council tax to bring much-needed relief to hard-pressed families after 10 long years of council tax hikes under Labour.
We have reduced and will abolish prescription charges to restore the national health service in its 60th year to its founding principle of health care that is free at the point of use. We have saved the accident and emergency services in Ayr and Monklands. We have announced the new £842 million Southern general hospital in Glasgow, which is the biggest project in the history of the Scottish NHS and will be 100 per cent publicly funded.
We are investing £94 million to put 1,000 more police on Scotland's streets. Just this morning, the Minister for Community Safety announced Scotland's first drugs strategy for 10 years. I hope that that initiative will attract cross-party support.
The debate is about the Government's plans to move Scotland forward—about what will happen in the future. I am conscious that the First Minister has not told us much about that, so I give the Deputy First Minister the chance to do so before she gets too far into her speech.
I say to Robert Brown that patience is a virtue. If he is patient, we will get to the future pretty soon. However, before we get there, I will finish the list of SNP achievements.
In education, we are working towards a 50 per cent increase in free nursery provision. We are providing record funding for our universities and colleges. We have abolished the graduate endowment fee and restored the historic principle of free education in Scotland.
Those are just a few of the ambitious and decisive actions that we have taken in the past 12 months. More progress has been made in one year than our predecessors managed in eight years, which is perhaps why they are in such a bad mood.
I will refer briefly to the typically greeting and girning Labour amendment. Outlining those achievements is not self-congratulation; it is just a statement of fact and recognition of a real record of achievement. I suppose that since the previous Labour Government did not have one of those, it might be too much to expect Labour members to recognise one now when they see it.
Although we have made fantastic progress, Robert Brown is right—that is a comment that I will not repeat; in fact, I will probably never say it again. We have much more to do, and in our second year in office it is our responsibility and our intention to take on some of the big challenges that face our nation.
In the next few weeks alone, we will publish the report of the groundbreaking task force on health inequalities—the most in-depth and innovative prescription yet for tackling and reversing the horrendous and growing inequalities in health and life chances that Labour presided over for the past decade.
We will respond to the highly successful "Firm Foundations" housing consultation with a series of radical proposals to tackle the housing crisis that Labour ignored for 10 long years.
We will build on the action that we have already taken to reduce smoking rates further in Scotland with the publication of a new strategy to tackle alcohol misuse, which is without a doubt the biggest public health challenge facing our nation over the next few years.
We will consult on a patients' rights bill, so that patients know what their rights are and can get effective redress when things are not delivered. We will step up the fight against serious organised crime and legislate to reform the law on rape and sexual offences. We will also, of course, give our full support to Patrick Harvie's hate crime bill.
Looking further ahead, we will consult on a wide-ranging marine bill for Scotland, to give the Scottish Government—not the United Kingdom Government—responsibility for marine planning and nature conservation beyond the 12-nautical-mile limit. We will also introduce an ambitious climate change bill to put Scotland at the forefront of international action on our environment.
There is even more. We will bring forward proposals to safeguard rural schools, with a legislative presumption against their closure, and we will drive forward the curriculum for excellence to provide the best possible learning opportunities for children and young people from three to 18, while we continue our work to reduce class sizes in Scotland—something that Labour has sadly abandoned.
Can the Deputy First Minister tell us—the First Minister could not—how much the policy of class size reduction will cost?
If Murdo Fraser had listened at First Minister's question time, he would have heard the First Minister answer all those questions comprehensively. When all of us face the electorate again, it will be this Government that has succeeded in reducing class sizes in the face of opposition from the other parties.
I hope that all the measures that I have outlined will have the support of all parties in this chamber as we seek to set in train long-term solutions to some of the long-term and deep-seated problems that face our country.
Our success over the past year is not only about what we have done; it is also about how we have done it. We are breathing new life into the governance of Scotland and are making Government and public services more open and accountable. We are moving Scotland forward not by diktat but by dialogue and debate. That open, democratic approach is at the heart of our national conversation on Scotland's constitutional future and it underpins our historic concordat with local government.
That new, open approach will go even further. I am pleased to confirm that this summer the Scottish Cabinet will meet in towns and villages throughout Scotland. We look forward to hearing the views of people and communities from across the country. We will shortly launch Scotland performs to show clearly and transparently how Scotland is doing and what the Government is doing. There will be a new era of public accountability here in Scotland.
Will the minister take an intervention?
I will make some progress at the moment—I will perhaps take an intervention later.
In the environment portfolio we will pilot a scheme, which the Minister for Environment is particularly enthusiastic about, to give the public timely access to the evidence that informs our decisions.
This Government is delivering for Scotland by what we are doing and how we are doing it.
There is another issue that deserves to be debated this afternoon. There is no doubt that as we in the Scottish Government work to improve the lives of people in Scotland, our actions are being undermined here and now by a failing UK Government that is caught like a rabbit in the headlights of events. As our actions to cut business rates, freeze council tax, abolish student tuition fees and reduce prescription charges help hard-pressed families, Gordon Brown's inaction in the face of rising fuel and food prices punishes those hard-pressed families and hard-pressed individuals throughout Scotland. To add insult to injury, as Scottish householders struggle with sky-high hikes in the costs of heating their homes and filling their cars to get to work, Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are pocketing a £4 billion windfall from Scotland's oil. The SNP Government is clear: that windfall from Scotland's black, black oil should not fill Labour's financial black hole. It should be reinvested now in measures to ease the burdens of individuals and families throughout the country. I have no doubt that as the SNP continues to push for a fuel price regulator to ensure that the cash from higher oil prices helps consumers, Scotland will be watching to see how the other parties vote on that.
The Government has already proved that it has vision and ambition for Scotland. We have shown that we can be trusted to use our responsibilities wisely and we have demonstrated that we are dynamic, forward thinking and more than competent in taking the right decisions for Scotland. We have shown, and will go on showing, that we will always stand up for Scotland and put the interests of our country first. It has been an enormous privilege for each and every one of us to have had the chance to move Scotland forward in our first year in government, and each and every one of us is looking forward to the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.
I am pleased to move,
That the Parliament welcomes the many decisions taken over the last 12 months to make Scotland a wealthier, greener, healthier, safer and smarter nation, including the reduction in business rates for 150,000 small business properties, the funding to put more police on Scotland's streets, the new partnership with local government and the cross-party initiatives to tackle problems related to drugs, alcohol and tobacco; further welcomes the Scottish Government's commitment to more open government and its proposals on proactive publication of material across government and, in particular, the pilot project within the environment portfolio; looks forward to a range of proposals from the Scottish Government with regard to climate change, patients' rights, criminal justice, marine policy, safeguarding rural schools and driving forward the Curriculum for Excellence, and believes that many of the measures already agreed by the Parliament to improve the lives of people living in Scotland will be undermined unless the UK Government takes action to tackle rising costs of fuel and food.
I congratulate Nicola Sturgeon on being a bit better than the First Minister was two weeks ago when he ranted to Parliament about moving Scotland forward. However, there is nothing unusual in her being better than the First Minister—it is not saying much. As our amendment says, his statement then contained
"no positive policies for the future"
of Scotland—although I might have added to the amendment "with the exception of the university for sporting excellence", the idea for which the First Minister nicked from our manifesto. His statement was also, of course, bathed in the self-congratulation for which he is famous.
The SNP Government should not get too carried away by a year in which it has delivered two pieces of legislation—one of which is impacting negatively on a significant group of students—plus a few headline-grabbing initiatives, including scrapping bridge tolls and freezing the council tax, which have led to damaging consequences for the environment and the provision of local government services respectively.
Of course we welcome the cross-party initiatives on tobacco, alcohol and drugs that the motion refers to—indeed, I was pleased to defend the Scottish Government's recent anti-smoking initiatives on "Riddoch Questions" on Friday in the absence of the minister—but we must ask ourselves whether some at least of the £165 million that has been spent on the business rates reduction that the motion trumpets could not have been transferred to the central heating programme for older people, which the cabinet secretary effectively scrapped last week.
When it comes to the future, of course we welcome more open government in relation to the environment and everything else, but it would be useful to know at least something about what is proposed. We looked forward to substantive and effective proposals on the issues that the motion refers to, but what did we find? The motion mentions criminal justice, but where is the long-promised criminal justice bill and the proposals for robust community sentencing? Those are the essential prerequisite of any changes to prison policy. The motion refers to climate change, but what has happened to the SNP's manifesto commitment on binding annual carbon reduction targets of 3 per cent? Where are the practical measures to make an overall 80 per cent reduction achievable? Sarah Boyack outlined such measures in her excellent speech yesterday.
The motion also refers to the curriculum for excellence, but I suppose that the Scottish Government could not have anticipated the extensive coverage in The Scotsman this morning about the ineffective implementation of our important initiative to raise educational standards, which is now floundering in vagueness and is so inadequately resourced. Those are the presumed successes that the SNP chooses to mention in its motion, not daring, of course, to refer to its flagship policies on the local income tax, reduced class sizes and the Scottish futures trust, all of which are falling apart at the seams as we speak.
The legality of the local income tax was questioned by a leading lawyer yesterday, but legality apart, the local income tax simply will not raise the necessary money to keep services at their current levels unless it is set at a rate that would hammer ordinary hard-working families.
I am really reluctant to interrupt this marvellous impression of the Rev I M Jolly, but would Malcolm Chisholm care to address some of the policy announcements that I have just made about the things that we are going to do over the next year? We could have a real debate if he would stop moaning and address some of the substance.
I have referred to several of the policy areas that Nicola Sturgeon mentioned and I will refer to several more in a moment. I understand that the SNP does not like to hear any criticism of its policy failures, but I remind her that that is part of parliamentary debate.
Class size reductions will not happen either, as we were told yesterday by the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland, without £420 million, which simply is not there in local authority budgets. The Scottish futures trust is such a shambles that it is hard to know where to start. Perhaps the kindest thing to say is that the SNP now appreciates the advantages of public-private partnerships, but it does not want to tell the small number of its more left-inclined back benchers. In the meantime, vital building projects slow down or grind to a halt and Scottish infrastructure, including new schools in Edinburgh, shows precious little sign of moving forward.
If those are the SNP manifesto commitments that are running into the sand, what about those that have not yet seen the light of day? We have got so used to the idea of broken promises that some people are beginning to think that they are just a normal feature of government. However, a few days ago I was talking to a fairly senior civil servant who reminded me of how the previous Administration fulfilled well over 90 per cent of the commitments in its partnership agreement, which was a combination of manifesto commitments from the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. To be fair, he pointed out that that was very high in comparison with UK Governments in the last century, but does the SNP really want to be worse than those?
I will not go through all the broken promises today. In order to save time, I merely ask the cabinet secretary—or whoever is to reply to the debate—to answer the questions that Wendy Alexander asked the First Minister two weeks ago today.
The cabinet secretary's motion refers to
"the new partnership with local government",
but not, unsurprisingly, to the funding attached to it. The concordat contained a specific set of spending commitments costed in the SNP manifesto at £634 million, but funded at £223 million in the local government settlement. That is a shortfall of £411 million. The shortfall would be even greater if we were to accept the costings that the directors of education gave yesterday. The situation is compounded, of course, by the use of block grant to freeze council tax, thereby reducing the resources available for investment in services as well as removing from councils fiscal autonomy to meet needs through local budgeting.
As a result, many local people in many local authorities are already suffering. Colleagues might provide other examples, but in my local authority area, the contrast between the rhetoric of Government policies and the reality on the ground is very stark in a range of areas such as class sizes, nursery provision, home care services and wider access to the arts.
As I am shadow minister for culture, perhaps I should say more about that last point. People have noticed over the past year how the Scottish Government likes to talk a good game about support for the arts, but the catalogue of troubles grows by the day. First, there was the axing of cultural co-ordinators, who were vital to ensuring wider access to the arts. Then there was the widespread confusion and concern about the Creative Scotland Bill and, according to the Finance Committee, its worst-ever financial memorandum. Now a Scottish nationalist Government is presiding over wide-ranging cuts to traditional Scottish arts and Scottish language dictionaries. Perhaps the Scottish Government could start moving forwards rather than backwards in that important area.
The member has just given us a long litany of budget areas that he believes are terrible for the people of Scotland. If that is the case, why did he not join the honourable Cathie Craigie in voting against the budget?
Brian Adam knows fine well that we proposed a large number of amendments to the budget—indeed, far more in one year than his party proposed in eight.
We are talking about moving forwards, but when are we going to get any movement at all on housing policy? I believe that last week the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing gave a commitment to the Local Government and Communities Committee that she would announce local authority housing allocations this week, a record eight weeks into the new financial year and 12 or more weeks too late. Whether or not they have been announced, I have not seen them yet, but the situation typifies a more general dithering and delay over housing policy.
An even more serious matter is the prospect of a Scottish nationalist Government presiding over the destruction of the most significant and most distinctively Scottish innovation in Scottish urban policy over the past 30 to 40 years: community-based housing associations. I wanted to say more on that subject, but I am in my final minute.
I, of course, support Murdo Fraser's amendment, which refers to Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom. However, I have to say that at last night's Scotsman debate I was astonished to hear Nicola Sturgeon's statement that she could not accept my preferred referendum question about Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, on the ground that she in some sense supported it. Perhaps we should recognise progress on that matter—or perhaps Ms Sturgeon has simply recognised that the people of Scotland will always vote to remain part of the UK.
I cannot accept the Liberal Democrats' amendment, as it would knock out ours. However, they are right to emphasise the need for the Scottish Government
"to bring forward a coherent energy strategy".
That is one of the essential responses to the challenge presented not only by climate change but by rising fuel prices.
The UK Government has been very active in addressing the problem of international oil supply and in implementing a coherent demand reduction policy. It would be interesting to know what the Scottish Government is doing in the areas for which it has responsibility, instead of doing what it always does best—blaming the Westminster Government.
I move amendment S3M-2001.2, to leave out from first "welcomes" to end and insert:
"condemns the self-congratulation and lack of positive policies for the future in the First Minister's statement on Moving Scotland Forward on 14 May 2008; recognises the many SNP broken promises on a whole range of manifesto commitments, from dumping student debt to providing a £2,000 grant to first-time buyers, and calls on the Scottish Government to bring forward substantive policies to address climate change, skills development, affordable housing shortages, health inequalities and the other big challenges that confront Scotland."
I enjoyed Malcolm Chisholm's speech, but I would advise him and other Labour speakers to stay off the subject of referendums for the rest of the afternoon.
It is ironic that this debate on moving Scotland forward comes from a Government whose members this morning will have woken up to some of the worst headlines that it has had since it took office just over a year ago. Yesterday truly was wobbly Wednesday for the Government, as it hit a new low in its forward plans. The proposals for the so-called local income tax were savaged at the Local Government and Communities Committee. The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, Fiona Hyslop, was left flapping in the wind over class size reductions—she was followed in that flapping by the First Minister and, just now, by the Deputy First Minister, who was unable to answer the simple question of how much the policy will cost. Moreover, yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth gave a pitiful performance in his statement on the Scottish futures trust, which as every day goes by looks more and more like the public-private partnership/private finance initiative model that it was supposed to replace. One by one, the Government's flagship policies are falling apart, and the scheduling of the debate could not have been more helpful in allowing us to expose its failings.
Far from moving forward, Scotland is going backwards in far too many areas. Occasionally, the SNP has talked a good game but, when it comes to the crunch, it all too often reverts to type and goes back to its tired old left-wing roots. For a start, it abhors any attempt to involve the private sector in public services, even if such a move will deliver to taxpayers savings in health, education or justice. For reasons of pure ideology, the SNP is vehemently opposed to our proposals—now adopted even by the Liberal Democrats—to mutualise Scottish Water, which would free up £200 million of taxpayers' money every year.
With regard to justice, the SNP is intent on creating a soft-touch Scotland. By letting more and more prisoners out of jail rather than building the prison capacity that we need, it is making a mockery of the Scottish justice system. It is little wonder, then, that sheriffs are criticising it. However, instead of responding to those criticisms, SNP ministers simply carry on down the same road with more enthusiasm than ever before.
When it comes to education, it is now clear that the class size reduction policy is simply not affordable or deliverable. Even when legislation has been passed, problems remain. The graduate endowment may have been abolished, but postgraduate students now face a demand for immediate payment of the graduate endowment as a consequence. The Government is not lifting a finger to help them.
Even a broken clock is right twice a day. I accept that there have been good things from the Government, albeit that, in the main, they were borrowed from our manifesto. Tolls on the Forth and Tay bridges have been abolished, which we welcome, and the previous Labour and Liberal Democrat Executive's decision to close the accident and emergency units at Ayr and Monklands hospitals has been reversed, which we welcome, too. We particularly welcome the new drugs policy for Scotland, which the Government announced today, the extra 1,000 police officers, and the accelerated cuts in business rates for 150,000 small businesses. All that was delivered by the SNP Government as a result of Conservative pressure as part of the budget process.
How can Murdo Fraser say that he welcomes the extra 1,000 police officers when the figure that I was given in reply to a parliamentary question shows that there are fewer police officers now than there were when the SNP took over?
The Labour Party is not in any position to lecture anyone on police numbers. We will hold the SNP to its promises and ensure that we get the extra 1,000 police officers. We will play the role of a constructive Opposition.
Robert Brown is fond of penning letters to the newspapers in which he accuses the Conservatives of sucking up to the SNP. [Interruption.] In response to the mutterings that I hear from members on the Liberal Democrat benches to my left, I remind them that it was their votes that pushed through the abolition of the graduate endowment. Liberal Democrats did that without any thought for the impact of abolition on the higher education budget. They also supported the SNP in its blinkered opposition to the building of new nuclear power stations in Scotland. No doubt, the Liberal Democrats will support plans for a local income tax. Truly, the difference between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats is not that we support the SNP on occasion and that they do not; it is simply that when we support the SNP we ensure that we get something in return, whereas they are happy to offer something for nothing. If Dr Faustus had been a Liberal Democrat, the devil would have got a very cheap deal.
Looking ahead, there are areas where we will continue to work with the SNP Government. I am interested in its proposal to safeguard rural schools. I am also interested in working with the Government on promoting and giving every young person the right to access outdoor education. I am further interested in its transport proposals and in delivering improved connectivity for our nation.
In our amendment, we urge the SNP Government to work closely and constructively with our country's other Government in Westminster. All too often, the SNP has taken a confrontational approach in seeking to stir up conflicts with Westminster. That is not in the wider interests of our nation. The SNP is putting its narrow pursuit of separation ahead of what is good for Scotland's people. It is time for the Parliament to tell the Government to start putting Scotland's interests first. The Government has to accept that the great majority of Scots believe in the United Kingdom and its benefits.
If anything epitomises the emptiness at the heart of the SNP agenda, it is surely the so-called national conversation. It is a complete waste of taxpayers' money, given that the result has been only 130 letters, at a cost to the taxpayer of £150,000—or more than £1,000 per reply. It is time for the SNP Government to ditch the ludicrous national conversation and get on with the real job of moving Scotland forward.
I hope the Parliament sends a clear message to the SNP Government at decision time tonight that it is time to stop picking unnecessary fights with Westminster and time to start delivering.
I have pleasure in moving amendment S3M-2001.2.1, to insert at end:
"and further calls on the Scottish Government to work constructively with Her Majesty's Government on these and other issues for the benefit of the Scottish people, thus demonstrating the benefits of our historic union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a union which continues to attract overwhelming public support."
In the recent housing debate, I pointed out that, one year after the election, Liberal Democrats are looking to the Government to provide a different form of debate than that which we heard a year ago.
A year ago, it was perfectly legitimate for the Government to proclaim its manifesto and what it might or might not do. A year on, in holding the Government to account, the Parliament is entitled to look for more substance in Government statements and in relation to the difficult decisions that it has to take, and not just a repetition of some of the populist measures that it has announced.
I illustrate the point with a reference to the Government's outcome targets and to what the cabinet secretary described in her speech as the historic concordat with local government. Liberal Democrats support the move away from an input-driven agenda to an outcome-driven one but, when the Government is asked one year on about the delivery of mental health services or class size reductions, it is not acceptable for ministers to refer members to the concordat.
Setting outcome targets and signing the concordat are inputs, not outcomes. One year on, the Parliament is entitled to be told of the outcomes that have been achieved, or the progress that has been made towards achieving them. Therefore, it is really not good enough for the Government simply to repeat to us the statement that that document has been signed. We acknowledge its importance, but it is not the answer when Opposition parties ask those questions.
The Liberal Democrat amendment makes it clear that we are keen to support some of the measures that the Government promotes. It is nonsense to suggest that every area of politics involves great party divides. We will certainly support the cross-party initiatives on tackling drug, alcohol and tobacco misuse to which the cabinet secretary referred. We are also happy to support the commitment on the previous Government's curriculum for excellence, to which Malcolm Chisholm referred, although we hope that this morning's newspaper reports that the Government is in danger of fouling up that excellent policy, which it inherited from its predecessors, are wide of the mark.
Liberal Democrats also welcome the pilot scheme on environmental information that Michael Russell is promoting, which is admirably aimed at greater openness and transparency. However, we suggest that, six years after the passage of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002—I do not know how on earth it was passed; the current Government believes that the Scottish calendar began in May 2007, so it is difficult to believe that we passed that excellent act in 2002—there is an irrefutable case for examining the range of bodies that the act covers. That would chime with greater transparency.
The Government has failed to address some issues. For example, the cabinet secretary made much of the UK Government's failure to mitigate the price increases in fuel—the Liberal Democrats support that position. The SNP MEP Alyn Smith has said:
"I cannot emphasise enough how important"
producing a coherent energy strategy is—I do not often agree with him, but I agree with that quotation.
However, in 2007, Jim Mather promised us an
"energy policy in Scotland by the end of the year."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 6 September 2007; S3W-2348.]
In February, energy policy was "ongoing". In April, the First Minister told the Parliament that Jim Mather would set out the strategy "in the coming weeks" but, by the beginning of this month, Jim Mather, whose lexicon of management speak has elevated obfuscation to an art form, told us that he would set it out "next month". Clearly, the First Minister omitted to tell us that he had not intended to imply consecutive weeks. There is still no energy policy—if it was not so serious, the position would be risible.
Individually and collectively, students feel that they have been let down. One has only to speak to the National Union of Students and students in any constituency to find that out. It would go a long way towards easing their individual plights if the Government was to introduce proposals for a minimum income guarantee for students—as agreed by the Parliament.
We also need more substance on addressing the problems that are associated with our disadvantaged young people and children.
I am interested in Ross Finnie's plans for a minimum income guarantee for students. Will he tell us at what level that minimum income would be set, how much it would cost and where the money would come from?
Mr Finnie, you are in your last minute.
That will rather reduce the detail that I would normally have been delighted to supply—what an unfortunate intervention from the chair. The figure is £7,000 and we would be delighted to discuss the proposal with Murdo Fraser.
The previous Government promoted the working families fund, sure start Scotland and the multiple and complex needs initiative. We need to know where the people whom those measures targeted stand now.
We would have no difficulty in supporting the Conservative party if it was simply talking about the United Kingdom, but I am bound to say that I do not really support a party whose ambition, which might appear at first to be laudable, is to have a higher per capita prison population than that of Turkey. I say to the Tories that that ambition may be many things, but it does not have a lot to do with justice.
I hope that the Government will stop pretending that the calendar started in May 2007. I do not think that that is sensible. I hope that it will start to report on outcomes, not inputs, and that the debate on moving Scotland forward, which can and should be a sensible debate for the Parliament to engage in, can be more positive. I hope that the Government will address the clear gaps in its current policy initiatives.
I move amendment S3M-2001.1, to leave out from first "welcomes" to end and insert:
"is concerned that the First Minister's statement on Moving Scotland Forward lacked substance, failed to justify the many promises broken by the SNP over the last 12 months and failed to address the long-term issues facing Scotland; welcomes the cross-party initiatives to tackle problems related to drugs, alcohol and tobacco, the commitment to drive forward the previous administration's Curriculum for Excellence and the pilot scheme on environmental information; calls for a substantial extension of the bodies covered by the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002; believes that the statement was a missed opportunity to bring forward a coherent energy strategy; calls for the introduction of a minimum income guarantee for students, and further calls on the Scottish Government to empower children and young people to have the best possible start in life by attacking the causes of early disadvantage."
I am delighted to participate in a debate that celebrates our first-ever SNP Government, which is delivering for Scotland. I do not want to repeat the long, long list of SNP achievements of the past year—many of which were touched on by the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing—because the debate is about moving Scotland forward.
Let us therefore talk about some of the things that the SNP will be doing over the next three years. For example, the SNP Government will more than double the budget for tackling drug and alcohol misuse and for investment in smoking cessation. For the first time, all teenage girls will be vaccinated against cervical cancer and more than £10.6 million will be invested in improved eye care services.
The SNP Government will invest £1.47 billion over three years in affordable housing as part of a strategy to increase house building from 24,000 a year to 35,000 a year by 2015. That is in sharp contrast to the Labour-Liberal Executive, which—I point out to Mr Chisholm—oversaw in its last year a 31 per cent decrease in registered social housing builds. That was the lowest level since the Parliament began. The SNP Government will abolish the right to buy new council houses in order to encourage local authorities to build homes again. North Ayrshire Council, in my constituency, built only five houses in 12 years. A new £25 million fund will assist councils.
Does Kenneth Gibson agree that the £25 million for council houses will build about 100 council houses, compared with the 36,000 social rented houses that we built in eight years in office?
Malcolm Chisholm presided over a 50 per cent increase in homelessness, from 24,000 to 36,000, which is shameful. It is quite clear that the money for council housing is to kick-start the new build.
The record investment of £5.24 billion in higher and further education over three years will keep Scotland at the cutting edge of the knowledge economy.
Scotland's first marine bill to protect our seas and coasts will be introduced this year. As Mr Finnie will be interested to know, the renewable energy target for electricity will be increased from 40 per cent to 50 per cent by 2020. This year, the Glendoe scheme will come on stream and will provide hydroelectric power for 250,000 additional homes.
Let us not, however, think about what we in Parliament have to say; rather, let us think about what the great and the good of Scotland have to say about the SNP Administration. Let me quote some individuals who appeared in a feature headed "Reasons to be cheerful" in Scotland on Sunday on 20 April. James MacMillan, the composer, said:
"I am not a natural SNP supporter, but I have to concede that their level of political efficiency and intelligence blows the other lot out of the water. Compared to the present Government, Scottish Labour looks sleazy, moronic and corrupt."
John Haldane, professor of philosophy at the University of St Andrews, said:
"The SNP has … shown itself to be capable of forming a functioning minority administration. The latter achievement has swept away the ‘it can't work' objection, and the SNP is now engaged in a fascinating attempt to re-envision Scottish identity. With Labour in Scotland seeming to have lost its sense of purpose, and in Westminster its ability to manage the business of government, we have moved further than could have been imagined a year ago towards general acceptance of the idea of Scottish independence. It's ‘the vision thing'; and for now, at least, the vision lies with the SNP. Unless unionists can fashion an image of Britain appealing to the Scots' imagination they have no future."
I do not want anyone to accuse me of bias in the debate, so I will quote Mr Sam Galbraith, former Labour minister, who said in the same article:
"The SNP Government has been very poor."
Let us move on to what other people had to say. John Byrne, the famous playwright, said that
"There is something in the air since they got in. Something has changed. Things feel more positive. Although I can't put a finger on anything in particular... there is just a better feeling in Scotland."
The writer Janet Paisley said:
"I feel a lot more optimistic about things. I think that people are now a lot more positive about Scotland. It's good that there are no more tolls on the road bridges and they have frozen the council tax. I just hope that people will believe much more in Scotland. We have so much to offer the world. Maybe we shall finally get rid of the Scottish cringe."
That will perhaps not happen for the majority of members, but it might for the people of Scotland.
Will the member take an intervention?
I am always happy to take an intervention from my good friend Mr Johnstone.
The member's talent for selective quotation makes me want to inquire whether his speech is made up of letters that are cut out of the newspapers.
Unfortunately, I do not have access to Alex Orr's back catalogue.
Mr Foulkes has expressed concerns about police numbers, so let us hear what Joe Grant, the general secretary of the Scottish Police Federation said:
"It's fair to say that the first year of the SNP Government has had the police at or pretty close to the top of its agenda. If I were writing a report card it would say ‘great start, keep up the good work'".
I should say to his lordship that the intention is to have 1,000 extra police by the end of this session of Parliament.
Raymond O'Hare, the director of Microsoft Scotland and chairman of the Institute of Directors Scotland said:
"Overall I am heartened as this Scottish Government nears its first year in office. I look forward to continue working with the SNP-led administration to enable further access, in this knowledge economy, to technologies that bring with them economic and social opportunities and great potential to transform people's lives."
Bob Woodward, the chief executive officer of SMG said that
"There's no doubt that Scotland is feeling more confident, more dynamic and more purposeful since the SNP Government came to power last May."
Of course, numerous people have said the same. Iain McMillan, the director of the Confederation of British Industry Scotland, who is no friend to the SNP, said that
"the urgent review of Scotland's transport needs and confirmation of a raft of new strategic transport projects, including the M74 and second Forth crossing, was very welcome, as was the fresh energy applied to improving Scotland's planning regime and reducing the business rate burden on small firms."
The SNP and the Government are taking Scotland forward with confidence to a new, more positive, better and more optimistic future.
As the Scottish Parliament heads towards the summer recess, we have an opportunity to reflect on a year with the SNP in charge, albeit as a minority Government. I was disappointed by the self-congratulatory tone of the motion, but I was even more disappointed—if not surprised—by Alex Salmond's speech when he presented his moving Scotland forward proposals to the Parliament. It was as heavy on self-regard as it was light on tackling issues of substance for the people of Scotland.
This time last year, much play was being made of the exciting new opportunities that minority government would present, not just to the party in power but to the Opposition parties. It seemed evident that the new Administration would, of necessity, have to negotiate to set the budget or get its programme and policies through Parliament: co-operation, discussion and compromise would be the order of the day and the Government's approach would be tempered by the views of the Parliament as a whole. The Opposition would be expected to resist the temptation simply to be oppositional and instead would seek consensus where possible.
In the first eight years of the Parliament, we had a coalition Government. It is a feature of coalitions that parties must negotiate and seek compromise. An example of that was the Planning etc (Scotland) Bill, on which there was a huge consensus throughout Parliament on the balance that we struck. In those days, the SNP was opposed to that balance because it was too pro-development. Now that the SNP is in government and has new friends, however, things have changed.
Despite the language of a year ago, the reality has been different. From early on, it became clear that with the support of the Government machine and with the authority of ministerial office, the SNP Administration was less interested in the reality of co-operation than it claimed. As I reflect on the year, it is clear to me that a feature of the Administration has been its disregard for, and lack of interest in, parliamentary accountability. It is a salutary lesson about how power works to witness just how far a party without a working majority in Parliament can go in pursuing its interests and priorities once the power of office is granted to it. Interrogation of policy is dismissed as moaning; raising questions about funding is condemned as scaremongering; and the year-zero mentality persists.
The examples of that disregard are too many to list. We have had reluctance to report to Parliament, dismissive responses to questions from MSPs and ignoring of Parliament's views on key policies. That is coupled with the return, in the figure of the First Minister, Alex Salmond, to the use of abuse, hostility and contempt as parliamentary weapons. Alex Salmond has brought with him from Westminster a political preference for vitriol over reason, boldly answering at length questions for which he has no responsibility, and denying this Parliament the information that it is rightly entitled to seek. The approach of the Administration is an unhappy reminder of the old Scottish Office as run by the Tories—executive power with little or no accountability, and no regard being given to the consequences of actions. This matters, because without proper parliamentary scrutiny, the Government will be left unhindered to its tax-cutting, trickle-down agenda. The people who most need Government action will be abandoned.
On this side of the chamber, we understand the equation of economic growth and shared prosperity, and at the heart of Labour members' concerns is the silence of the First Minister on those issues. In his speech, there was nothing about discrimination, inequality or social justice. From other ministers, we get assertion and rhetoric but we do not get action. The sharp distinction between what ministers care about and what they do not care about is obvious in their certainty over tax cuts and in their uncertainty over funding and delivery of services. We have seen the ending of programmes such as closing the opportunity gap, which has done the hard practical work of delivering opportunity in our communities.
During the debate on drugs this morning, when he was pressed on resources to help drug users or to help communities that are under the cosh from drug dealers, Fergus Ewing told us that he could not just throw money at the problem. However, when it comes to the small business bonus scheme, that is precisely what the Government has done, with not one condition attached. The budget was focused on extracting money—money that should be directed at public investment in services—in order to fund cuts in taxes and charges. It has been estimated that there will be a shift of a stunning £434 million per annum by 2011.
We see the cynicism of a Government that pretends to preside over a social democratic process, but has an Irish taxation model. It is a deceit and everyone knows it.
The budget has been criticised by equality groups for its lack of transparency. Even an equality statement, the purpose of which was to establish the real impact of policy—as opposed to the claimed impact of policy—on disadvantaged groups, was simply factually wrong.
Opposition to the Government's housing proposals was dismissed by the Deputy First Minister as "absurd", despite the fact that it was the housing association movement that provided the critique.
As for consequentials of £34 million for the families of disabled children, the money has disappeared. Elsewhere in the United Kingdom, children and families are benefiting, but the money has gone from here and no one can explain where it is. The minister will not even talk to local authorities about the issues that underpinned the funding.
The Government is quick to claim credit, to assert that it is acting, and to claim that it is listening. However, in reality it is cynical in pursuing its goal of preparing this country to exit the United Kingdom. That explains the silence of the back benchers. The Government is quick to find an alibi and to refuse to take responsibility. It is not governing, but is instead preparing for its constitutional obsessions. It should reconsider what it claims is a "programme". It should do this Parliament and the people of Scotland a favour, and start acting in their interests rather than in its own.
In this new session of Parliament, government by ministerial statement has become a substitute for government by legislation. In itself, that is not a bad thing, even if it is just a reflection of the parliamentary arithmetic. It provides a welcome respite from the torrent of laws and regulations, and the obscene diet of bills and statutory instruments to which we were accustomed during the first eight years of the Parliament.
Government by statements in the chamber is especially welcome on matters of substance, when ministers make significant policy announcements, or account for their actions, or explain their positions on issues of genuine public concern. It allows members the opportunity to question what is being done. Of course, government by statement can be overdone. Opposition members have to be restrained in their demands for ministerial statements because, of course, they put ministers centre stage. As we all know, when it comes to strutting on a stage and hogging the limelight, no one does it better or with greater enthusiasm than the First Minister. It is a self-evident truth that there is no greater admirer of Alex Salmond than Alex Salmond—apart possibly from Alex Neil, and perhaps Mike Russell.
The First Minister's statement on moving Scotland forward was a classic of its genre. First, we had a lengthy review of the Government's short list of achievements—the overwhelming majority of which bear a high correlation to policies in the Conservative manifesto. That was the good bit. We then had the glossing over of the inconvenient truths about the fraudulent parts of the SNP's manifesto, which is now coming apart at the seams, whether in relation to local income tax, the school building programme, class sizes, grants for first-time home buyers, writing off all student debts and the use of private finance in public infrastructure projects.
The latter is particularly interesting. The proposed Scottish futures trust is apparently now in the same family as PFI and PPP. Just as PPP was the son of PFI, so the SFT is just a clone with a kilt on. However, the linguistic contortions to which the SNP Government will go to deny the blindingly obvious and to try to hide that fundamental truth are truly amazing. It seems that fine points of distinction are being presented as matters of fundamental difference, with the odd bit of old-style socialist rhetoric thrown in to try to appease the gullible members on the SNP back benches. I was interested to read in the Scottish futures trust consultation paper about the SNP's objection to what were described as "uncapped equity profits". I would love to hear the supposedly pro-enterprise John Swinney and Jim Mather explain to the Royal Bank of Scotland, the Bank of Scotland, Standard Life and other major Scottish companies just how much the Government objects to their shareholders earning "uncapped equity profits", and exactly what limitations would be put on the making of profits by an SNP Government in an independent Scotland.
The motion says that the UK Government should be taking
"action to tackle rising costs of fuel and food."
As we all know, fuel duty is a substantial component of the price that we pay at the pumps for petrol and diesel. Accordingly, it is a perfectly reasonable proposition that fuel duty increases be scrapped or that fuel duty be reduced at this time. However, we also know that food is not taxed. It is therefore difficult to see what direct action any Government can take to tackle the rising cost of food without resorting to price controls. Is that SNP policy? Is an independent Scotland to be a land of profit controls, price controls and—inevitably—income controls? Is that the sort of business environment that the SNP wants to encourage? I think not.
One of the very few substantive points in the First Minister's statement was the announcement that Scotland would be adopting the model known as Virginia performs—a model of public accountability to track the performance of Government in a range of public services, which was pioneered in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Last April, as part of the Scottish Parliament delegation, I had the opportunity to meet Virginia's most impressive Governor, Tim Kaine, and to have a briefing from him and his senior officials on how Virginia performs works. Two things struck me in the course of that meeting. First, I was struck by the bipartisan approach by Republicans and Democrats to Virginia performs. Leading members of both parties are members of the council on Virginia's future, and are appointed by the Governor, along with business leaders, to advise him on policy issues. That bipartisan approach is entirely absent from the approach of the present Scottish Government. Secondly, performance measurement and public accountability are very much the key to improving standards and making Virginia one of the top-performing nations in the union.
That brings me neatly to my final point, and perhaps the most appropriate one to be made in any comparison of Scotland and Virginia. As students of American history will be aware, the Commonwealth of Virginia has significant experience of secession from a formerly united nation. Indeed, Richmond, Virginia was the capital of the confederacy. It was truly encouraging to find, back in April, along with my parliamentary colleagues, that Virginia is now one of the leading states in the United States of America: "one nation under God", "conceived in liberty" and united by a common citizenship, a common currency and an economic and monetary union. That is what lies at the heart of Virginia's success. Long may that continue to be our experience here in Scotland.
I enjoyed Mr McLetchie's closing remarks. However, I point out to him that Virginia was involved in secession twice. Is he suggesting that it will be leading the charge to rejoin the United Kingdom in the near future? It might be well placed within the federal structure in the United States, but I hardly think that it will demand to become a far-flung part of the United Kingdom.
I am glad to hear that Mr McLetchie approves of Virginia performs, and I look forward to his approval of, and co-operation in, the rolling out of Scotland performs, which is part and parcel of Scotland moving forward. It not only allows us as parliamentarians—whether back benchers in the governing party or members in other parts of the chamber—to hold the Government to account; it also allows the people to see directly how the Government is performing.
I am delighted with what we have delivered so far. There are the obvious successes of reversing the accident and emergency department closures, scrapping the bridge tolls and the graduate endowment, and reducing prescription charges. In my constituency, there is the rolling out of the Aberdeen dental school, which will be up and running in the autumn; the commitment of funding for the Olympic-sized swimming pool in Aberdeen in time for the Commonwealth games; and significant progress on a long-standing infrastructure project that is desperately needed for the north-east—the Aberdeen western peripheral route. In the past few days, the details of the public local inquiry that is to be held on the western peripheral route—not on whether we will have such a route, but on how it will be delivered—have been announced.
We have had a series of positive engagements with the people outwith the Parliament—hence the optimistic mood to which some of my colleagues have referred—and with at least some members of the Scottish Parliament in order that we can move forward. That has perhaps been as much a necessity as it has been something to be desired, but it works.
Will the member give way?
I am happy to take an intervention from Mr Brown.
In those ventures outside Parliament, was any information given about the cost of reducing class sizes, for example? We in Parliament have asked for the figures for so long.
I admire Robert Brown's tenacity and his focus on a particular detail, but such numbers are not important. It is about whether we will, by the end of the current session of Parliament, have made significant progress towards reducing primary 1 to primary 3 classes that currently have more than 18 pupils. I am confident, given the detail of the concordat and the single outcome agreements, that that will be delivered through a level of co-operation that has not been seen in Scotland for many years. Perhaps Mr Brown should focus more on the outcomes than on the inputs.
The Government has not only been co-operative within Parliament, but has bent over backwards to be so. We have had the opportunity to hear not only what the Government wants to debate, but what the Opposition wants to debate in Government time. Mr McLetchie rightly referred to the fact that the Opposition has demanded many statements and debates. Most of those that have been demanded so far have been delivered—this is one of them. At the start of the debate, barely a handful of Labour members were present to hear what the Government had to say and to hold us to account. I am delighted to see that rather more of them are here now than were here at the beginning—
Will the member give way?
That includes Lord Foulkes—I am happy to give way to him.
I am enjoying the member's speech. It is fantastic and very interesting, but it is divorced from reality. He talks about a great dynamic Scotland and about interfacing with the people and bringing them on board. Is that why the press gallery and the public gallery are so packed for this wonderful debate? [Laughter.]
The public are so content with what the Government is doing that they do not require to hear what you have to say about it, sir. This is not our choice of debate—it is your choice of debate. We are quite happy to be accountable not just for what we have done, but for what we will do.
Labour members have been at great pains to tell us how terrible the budget is. However, when push came to shove, other than the courageous Cathie Craigie, none of them had the courage to vote against the budget. Yet, they continue to come here and tell us daily what an awful budget it is. Johann Lamont told us that all the equality groups are against it because it is not transparent—
The member's time is up.
Okay. In that case, I am delighted—
No, the member must sit down.
I am delighted to wind up by saying that I am delighted with what the Government is doing—
I call Jeremy Purvis to be followed by Frank McAveety. I remind members to address their remarks through the chair.
I am tempted to allow Brian Adam to carry on, as he was digging a bigger and bigger hole.
The debate is about the Government's aspirations and forward plans. One amazing aspect that we have been debating this week is the Scottish futures trust document, which has been referred to. If members are able to read through the whole document and reach the annex, they will see the Government's estimates of the capital investment that is needed for our education estate. The table in the annex helpfully includes a code for the estimated capital need for local authority schools, with "B", "P" or "A" signifying whether the sum is in the budget, whether it is private finance or whether it is aspirational. The figure for local authority schools is in category A for aspirational. For the benefit of the chamber, I will read from the table the estimated capital need to fulfil the Government's aspiration. In 2008-09, it is zero. In 2009-10, it is zero. In 2010-11 is it zero. In 2011-12, it is £400 million. I do not know the Government's aspiration for the school estate after 2011-12, but parents and pupils need to know now what is going to be invested in the school estate.
Brian Adam and other SNP members—including the Deputy First Minister in her opening remarks—lauded the fact that this is a more competent Government than its predecessors. [Interruption.] I hear the cheers from the back benches. However, let me quote from the Finance Committee's consideration of one of the Government's pieces of legislation, the Creative Scotland Bill. The convener of the Finance Committee—an SNP member—said:
"It is the most unreliable estimate that I have seen in my life."
Alex Neil said:
"It seems as if you have stuck your thumb in the air and plucked out a figure. … I do not see how we can even consider the matter now, given the total lack of reliable information."—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 22 April 2008; c 398.]
Will the member give way?
I will give way, as Andrew Welsh is the convener of the Finance Committee. I hope that I quoted him correctly.
You certainly did. That is an example of a committee doing its work of ensuring financial competence and accuracy. It was recommended by the previous Finance Committee and we have put it into operation to ensure that the civil service gives accurate financial statements. It is all about financial competence. Jeremy Purvis should be praising the committee for that.
I give the convener credit for highlighting the financial incompetence of the SNP Government.
The convener concluded the meeting by saying:
"I hope that future financial memoranda will, when possible, be much more accurate, to allow Parliament to have accurate financial information before it. Otherwise, we will not be fulfilling our financial obligations."—[Official Report, Finance Committee, 22 April 2008; c 400-01.]
The Parliament has an obligation to scrutinise the Government's programmes on class sizes, on student debt and on the Scottish futures trust. However, time and again, the Government has refused to publish the information that would allow proper scrutiny. That is an absolutely valid subject for debate this afternoon.
On class sizes, on 5 September, the First Minister said—no ifs, no buts—that the promised reductions in class sizes would be delivered within this session of Parliament. Shortly afterwards, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning said to the Education and Lifelong Learning Committee that the Government deliberately never sets time frames. On 13 September, Robert Brown asked Maureen Watt, the Minister for Schools and Skills, what the cost of that would be and whether the Government had, indeed, estimated the cost of that policy. Maureen Watt said:
"Of course we have made a bid to meet those commitments."—[Official Report, 13 September 2007; c 1757.]
She was referring to her bid to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth. So, the Government either deliberately misled Parliament when it refused to state that it had the information on delivery of the promise on class sizes, or it simply refused to tell Parliament and parents and pupils across Scotland. That is not sustainable.
The SNP was perfectly clear about writing off student debt. The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning told the Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee:
"In effect, we will be relieving them of the responsibility, because we will be standing in their shoes."—[Official Report, Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, 27 June 2007; c 64.]
Then, three months later, Fiona Hyslop said that there was no majority for the policy in the Parliament so the Government was not going to pursue it, which was disingenuous to say the least.
As we heard earlier, the Government promised much from the Scottish futures trust on the school building programme. I see that Mr Russell, the minister for waste management who will be summing up today's debate—which is appropriate—is laughing. However, once again I quote the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning. She said:
"We think that schools and pupils will obtain far better value from a futures-trust funded school than from a PPP-funded school."—[Official Report, Education, Lifelong Learning and Culture Committee, 27 June 2007; c 40.]
Under the Finance Committee's scrutiny on Tuesday, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth admitted that PPP is a generic term for all such funding, and that the Scottish futures trust will not fund schools itself, which is another considerable disappointment.
On revenue support for the Falkirk schools scheme, which was lauded by the Deputy First Minister as a non-profit-distributing scheme, and which has a revenue support grant of £5 million for the 30-year duration of the PPP, I asked whether that support would be made available to other local authorities and projects. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Sustainable Growth said:
"Subject to the approval of projects in the normal fashion, the revenue support payments will be made available."—[Official Report, 28 May 2008; c 9017.]
The member should wind up.
Page 22 of the cabinet secretary's document highlights the fact that specific grants will not be rolled up into local government settlement.
If the Finance Committee and this Parliament are to do their jobs, we need honesty and accurate information from the Government about costs. Otherwise, we might just as well pack our bags and go home.
I thank the previous contributor for dissecting the weaknesses in the Government's case. The Deputy First Minister's opening speech was full of words of action and activity. With £30 billion to spend, it is no surprise that she can list some achievements for the Government. It would be disingenuous of me to claim that the Government has had no achievements, because that is why we have Government in the first place.
The fundamental problem with today's debate and previous debates is that the SNP has failed to deliver on the four fundamental issues on which it campaigned more than a year ago. After repeated questioning on television and radio this week about reductions in class sizes, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning gave no answer. Today, during First Minister's questions, the First Minister was given ample opportunity to specify timetable and costs, but he failed to respond. When his master's voice was given the opportunity to do so during her opening speech, she made no contribution about a timetable and costs. Methinks that something is quite wrong.
The Government has failed to bring any of the major specialists in local government funding to admit that the local income tax can be delivered legally and will be distributed equitably. Johann Lamont identified her fundamental concerns about other issues in the budget. This week, we found that postgraduates are caught in the uncertainty around the much-lauded SNP position on student debt.
Each and every time that the Government is interrogated, asked or cross-examined, it fails the basic test. When the Association of Directors of Education in Scotland representative, Murdo Maciver, was asked about class sizes this week, he said that there are no funds available for that commitment; I think that he is right, and that that is why we have had no answer from the First Minister or the Deputy First Minister this afternoon. To me, that lack of response is unacceptable. I hope that whoever closes the debate on behalf of the Government responds to those legitimate concerns. As David McLetchie identified—I do not necessarily share his opinion that we had too much legislation in the past—we expect ministers to respond to direct questions that parliamentarians ask in the chamber. There has been an abject failure by the Government to do so.
Today's debate is on moving Scotland forward—I hardly think that even an SNP Administration would wish to move us backwards or even sideways—but the SNP has adopted a moving target to avoid scrutiny on many of the fundamental issues. Just because ministers say that things are better, that does not necessarily mean that things are better. Just as physicians give people placebos to make them feel better, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister have adopted placebo language.
Despite the SNP's year-zero approach to recent history, the previous Administration secured some major achievements. Without the previous Administration's commitment, the largest housing debt in Europe would not have been removed from the tenants of Scotland's poorest city. That was done through partnership with the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Westminster, because that was the right thing to do. However, the policy was opposed by members of the current Government, who no longer have any credible plans for securing similar levels of investment.
Will the member take an intervention?
On health, the previous Administration committed to a major programme of tackling waiting times. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing is proud to accept that as an achievement of the current Government but, like everything else, the outcome is the result of our previous hard work.
Will the member give way?
No, I want to finish this point.
To use a school metaphor, the children who succeed in their exams at 16 do so because of the work that they did between the ages of five and 16 before they started to prepare for those exams. Let us have a little more humility and credibility from the Government in accepting the legacy of the previous Administration.
I give way to Margo MacDonald.
Presiding Officer, I apologise for arriving in the chamber late.
The member said that the previous Administration's action on housing debt was the right thing to do. Does he agree that the right thing to do would be to give City of Edinburgh Council tenants an equal playing field by cancelling the council's debt, which is holding back the housing programme?
What was regrettable about that debate was that those who are now in government campaigned strongly against our proposal to tackle Edinburgh's housing debt. Members of the Government must now deal with that issue, which exists as a consequence of their language in opposition, as they face up to the reality in government.
I welcome the commitment in the First Minister's statement to a centre for sporting excellence. As Labour's spokesperson on sport, I welcome the Government's conversion to putting sport much higher up the agenda. We ended up spending too much time looking at the structures of organisations rather than delivering credible support structures that can provide sporting excellence.
SNP members made a number of key commitments on which, under interrogation one year in, they have failed to give credible explanations. They have three more years before being tested by the electorate in 2011. I am convinced that much of what they claimed in 2007 will not be delivered by 2011. They will be held to account for that failure.
I welcome today's debate, which gives us the opportunity to reflect on the past year of achievements of Scotland's new Government and on its ambitions for the future.
When the First Minister made his statement to Parliament two weeks ago, he spoke about how the SNP is meeting its pledges to the people of Scotland and what we have delivered since winning last May's election. The motion before us outlines many of those achievements: the partnership with local government that froze council tax levels; the reduction and eventual abolition of prescription charges to restore, as Nicola Sturgeon said, Aneurin Bevan's vision of medicine free at the point of need; and the reintroduction of free education to Scotland, which is the country that first introduced the concept.
The SNP's ambition goes beyond what we have already achieved and, indeed, beyond what we can achieve under the limited powers of devolution. We are establishing the saltire innovation fund to encourage business and technological innovation. We plan to launch Scotland performs, which will focus on the outcomes of Government policy. We also heard the First Minister restate the Government's intention to give the people of Scotland a direct choice on their future in an independence referendum.
Only the full powers of independence will give the Parliament the ability to meet fully the ambitions of the people of Scotland that were reflected in last year's election. After eight long years, we are beginning to see devolution work in the way that people thought it could. That is giving people the confidence to think about how much more could be achieved.
The member asserts that seeing devolution work properly has given people in Scotland confidence that independence would work just as well. What is her source for that assertion?
I think that the polls suggest that that is the case.
During the First Minister's statement, I reminded the chamber of the scandal of child poverty in Scotland. In the very week that the First Minister made his statement, we heard reports from the Scottish Alliance for Children's Rights, suggesting that a damning report card on Scottish child welfare will be presented to the United Nations later this year. Sadly, its contents are not really news—we already know about rising teenage pregnancy rates, thousands of underage criminal convictions and the fact that one in four children lives in poverty. That is the situation in 21st century Scotland—a shameful legacy that 10 wasted years of new Labour have done nothing to reverse.
Although the First Minister confirmed that the Scottish Government will do everything in its all-too-limited power to tackle those scandals, he agreed with me that the best, quickest and fairest route to ending child poverty in Scotland is for the Scottish Parliament to have the full powers of an independent state. An independent Scottish Parliament and Government will have control of the welfare state, the power to reform taxation and the ability to reject the managerial, target-obsessed culture that has stifled the war on poverty in the UK for the past 10 years.
Unionist members may not like that reality; in that case, I would ask them a simple question. Do they honestly believe that, if they were to form the Government of an independent Scotland, they would not be in a better position to end child poverty, given that the London-based Government has so clearly failed? Does the socialist Scottish Labour Party seriously come to this chamber and say, "No, we do not want the power and responsibility to lift our children permanently out of poverty. We do not want the power to mobilise Scotland's oil wealth to help our vulnerable two-year olds, our teenagers who are looking for apprenticeships and our students who are struggling to get by"?
As we move forward, Scotland faces a choice between vision, ambition and confidence for the future, and a mindset that is stuck in the past. My colleague Alasdair Allan recently raised the spectre of former minister Sam Galbraith, who revealed the true feelings of some on the Opposition benches, when he said on the radio that, but for our links to London, Scotland would be "an insignificant little country". To those words, I can only respond with the words of Hugh MacDiarmid:
"Scotland small? Our multiform, our infinite Scotland, small?"
I believe that no country is insignificant. No country is too small to be limited by anything other than the imagination and ambition of its people. Sam Galbraith's is the mindset that Scotland rejected last year, when it chose to place its trust in the Scottish National Party. The SNP Government has done its best to work with those who are willing to co-operate in this chamber and beyond to make a concrete difference to the lives of people in Scotland and, indeed, in the wider world.
The motion touches on that when it talks about climate change—a global challenge that does not respect borders. During the Easter recess, I had the privilege of visiting Zambia with Oxfam Scotland, and saw at first hand the effect of climate change on communities that live in precarious circumstances. That is why I welcome the Scottish Government's world-leading proposals for a climate change bill, the establishment of the saltire prize—one of the biggest international innovation prizes in history—and its commitment to growing Scotland's international development budget and influence overseas.
The First Minister confirmed to the Parliament recently the steps that he is taking to show solidarity with people affected by natural disasters in China and Burma—once again, doing what we can and hinting at the potential Scotland would have as an independent nation on the world stage.
Our nationalism is defined by our internationalism, and independence is defined by the relationship that Scotland would have with other countries in the United Nations, the European Union, and any other agreements freely entered into.
The Government motion makes clear that Scotland's future is safe under a Government that is committed to putting the interests of Scotland's people first, last and always. We are repaying the trust of the people by delivering on the pledges that we made last year. As somebody once said, we have no reverse gear. We are moving Scotland forward, and showing on a daily basis how we can, and will, be better off with independence.
I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate and to support the Labour amendment. The debate allows us to examine the performance of the SNP after one year in power, to examine its policy priorities and to move on from the First Minister's statement of a few weeks ago, which was basically an exercise in self-congratulation. Unlike Kenny Gibson, I hope to examine some of the political issues; listening to his speech was like watching an edition of "What the Papers Say" as he read out all those newspaper quotations.
The story of the SNP's year has been one of broken promises. The SNP told students that it would dump student debt but, just this week, more than 3,000 students were given graduate endowment bills to pay off. The SNP told us that it would put 1,000 more police on the streets, but we have found recently from a written answer that fewer police are on the streets. I have no doubt that the SNP claims that the health service is safe in its hands but, as we heard last week, fewer double-crewed ambulances than this time last year are on the streets.
That shows that being in opposition is one thing and being in power is another. The SNP has had difficulty in translating the megaphone politics of opposition into the responsibilities of power. That is shown when SNP ministers who opposed PPP turn up at schools that have been funded through PPP with their hard hats and hard necks.
A prime policy objective must be growth in the economy, for which the SNP has set a policy target of matching UK economic growth by 2011. I will give credit where it is due. I welcome the M74 extension scheme that was launched yesterday, as it will contribute to economic growth. However, it is a case of one step forward and two steps back. The council tax freeze passes cash benefits to higher-rate taxpayers as opposed to lower-rate taxpayers. That will not contribute to economic growth.
Is it an argument in favour of the union that Scotland's economic growth should lag behind that of the rest of the United Kingdom?
We have benefited from the union dividend in recent years. The Scottish economy is stronger for being part of the union.
One of the SNP's flagship policies is a local income tax, which we now hear might be illegal. Such a policy would tax hard-working families and drive talent out of Scotland, which would undermine economic growth.
SNP motions on skills have been defeated twice in the Parliament and the SNP has not supported modern apprenticeships.
Investment in a strong school building programme to achieve a strong education system is important to the economy's growth. It is unfortunate that, as Jeremy Purvis ably demonstrated, that investment has slid to a halt. The Scottish Building Federation has recently complained that the halt in school building and general building programmes is starting to hit the building industry hard.
Much has been made of the Scottish futures trust, which business and unions have widely discredited. Business and unions want certainty and stability, whereas the Scottish futures trust is still on the starting blocks. We heard evidence at the Finance Committee that introducing the futures trust could take three to five years. The policy document talks about using local authority bonds, which have not been used in the 33 years since legislation provided for them in 1975. Absolutely no work has been done on how private finance would be secured.
In addition, as John Swinney told the committee on Tuesday, his favoured non-profit-distributing model is really a variant on PPP. We will have to wait a long time before the first school is delivered by the Scottish futures trust.
How do we move Scotland forward? We need to build the economy by supporting modern apprenticeships. We need a strong school building programme that gives us schools that are fit for purpose. We need safer communities in which more police are on the streets. The SNP is failing on those matters. When it comes to moving Scotland forward, it is clear that the SNP does not have the answers.
The debate has been interesting. My SNP colleagues have spoken of the many achievements of the SNP Government over the past year, although we have also heard the moaning Minnie collective of the Opposition with scant positives and plenty of moaning.
As a member of the Justice Committee, I am pleased to see the investment of £120 million a year to provide three new prisons. Murdo Fraser conveniently forgot about that when he spoke, but that is not much of a surprise, bearing in mind that the Tories did not build any prisons when they were last in power.
Will the member take an intervention?
I have just started, so I need to continue.
The issue has been debated numerous times in the chamber, but I do not think that anyone should argue with the measures that are being taken by Kenny MacAskill to deal with the terrible overcrowding problems in Scotland's prisons.
Continuing on the justice theme, I have spoken to various police officers in recent months and the overwhelming consensus is that they are delighted with the actions that have been taken to recruit 1,000 more police officers. There should be no doubt that those officers will be utilised in an effective capacity, whether they are on the beat in Greenock or Govan, Lerwick or Linlithgow or are on some other duty. I am sure that the chief constables will use the extra resources effectively.
The SNP Government may be lambasted by Labour members for many things, but it would be a cold heart that would deny the benefits of the increase in free personal care payments. The increase to £149, and to £67 for nursing care, will benefit more than 9,000 older people in care homes.
I have no doubt that our elderly population would be even better served if the attendance allowance were to be reinstated, so I am pleased that East Dunbartonshire Council recently voted unanimously to encourage the UK Government to reinstate payments for Scotland. That is somewhat surprising, given that the council is a Labour-Tory coalition, but perhaps the councillors' Labour colleagues in Parliament could take note: do not be afraid to contradict Gordon Brown's thoughts on the matter. That does not seem to bother the Labour leader in Scotland.
I like to think that we are all committed in our own way to creating a fairer, healthier, greener and smarter Scotland. The way in which the First Minister set out on 14 May what the SNP Government is doing to further that cause should therefore be welcomed. Measuring the success of creating such a Scotland by introducing the Scotland performs framework is an idea that has the potential to be rolled out further. The idea of accountability appears to frighten some, but the SNP Government is content to show the people of Scotland exactly what it is doing for them.
The announcement of the Scottish university for sporting excellence, to be based at the University of Stirling, and of the annual £2 million saltire innovation fund are only two examples of how the SNP is providing the basis for a healthier and smarter Scotland.
Alongside those initiatives, there will be a full and meaningful legislative programme. One piece of legislation that I will be particularly delighted to see being introduced in the coming year is the asbestos claims bill. I have campaigned on the pleural plaques issue since being elected last year. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice's bill, which will reverse the House of Lords judgment on pleural plaques, will be a massive boost to those who suffer from the condition and wish to pursue an action for damages. I have met quite a few people who suffer from pleural plaques and I have had dealings with the campaign groups. I assure members that those people are delighted that the bill will be brought forward in this Parliament.
The Scottish Prisons Commission's report is due. Henry McLeish has been reported a lot recently, speaking if not in outright support of the SNP, definitely in support of our many achievements, even though he is not yet convinced of the benefits of independence. I trust that the commission, which he leads, will give the Government a sound indication of the best way in which to deliver an effective prison system. I hope that the problems that have been caused by massive overcrowding and high rates of reoffending as a result of the lack of action by previous Administrations, including the Tories, will be addressed in the commission's findings.
The past year in the Parliament has undoubtedly been a fascinating one for the people of Scotland to watch. The electorate seem happy with the fact that a minority Government is ruling in Scotland, which means that decisions must be won on their own merits. That situation is new in the politics of Scotland and the UK. It is a fresh approach, with which SNP members of the Scottish Parliament are content. After all, we trust the Scottish population.
On parliamentary accountability and building support for the SNP's policies, the Parliament has twice voted against a central tenet of the "Firm Foundations" document on housing. We have said that we oppose it, but the minister has described that opposition as "absurd". Does the member agree that if the SNP needs to build support, the minister should respond to that opposition and adapt her policy accordingly?
The SNP Government will not take any lessons from Labour in view of the housing crisis that we have been left with.
Being part of the new politics in Scotland has been interesting, and it has been interesting to see a Government being considered to be successful in delivering for the people of Scotland. I look forward to next year, in which the SNP will continue to move Scotland forward.
I welcome the opportunity to speak in the debate and support the amendment in the name of my colleague Malcolm Chisholm.
In preparing for the debate, I again read the remarkable statement on moving Scotland forward that the First Minister made in the Parliament on 14 May. Before SNP members get too excited by my use of the word "remarkable", I should say that one realises what an outrageous exercise in self-aggrandisement the statement was only when one reads it in cold, hard print. It is also worth noting that the organ-grinder of the SNP Government has not come to the chamber to defend himself; instead, he has sent the Deputy First Minister to do his talking for him. That is a pity, but it is typical of him. I have nothing personal against Miss Sturgeon, but I would have preferred the First Minister to have been man enough to come to the chamber and answer for himself. I would like to have asked him to explain in greater detail some of the statements that he made in claiming that his Government is moving Scotland forward. Could he, for example, explain his claim that the SNP Government is ensuring that Scotland's children get the best possible start in life? How does that square with ending the commitment to giving all vulnerable two-year-olds a free nursery place? I refer to the scheme that the previous Administration piloted.
Given the member's interest in vulnerable two-year-olds, will he condemn Glasgow City Council for getting rid of 61 nursery teachers between 2004 and 2007 under the Labour and Liberal Democrat Administration?
Kenneth Gibson's intervention is like the speech that he made: not worth listening to.
Oh!
I see that Mr Russell is surprised.
The First Minister said that his Government is working closely with local government to meet the commitment on class sizes. That matter has been well rehearsed in the debate, so I do not need to go over it again. However, I will happily give way to any member of the SNP if they want to say how much the pledge on class sizes will cost and when it will be delivered. I hope that Mr Russell will do so when he sums up.
Will the member give way to a non-member of the SNP?
Very briefly.
Is the member advocating that the SNP should stick to its ridiculous promise on class sizes or that it should consider what is being taught, where it is being taught and by whom it is being taught?
The SNP made a promise to cut class sizes in its manifesto. We should at least be given information on whether doing that will cost much more than the SNP said that it would.
I turn to the SNP's proud boast about launching a new skills strategy, which James Kelly mentioned. That matter has been debated twice in the chamber and the SNP Government has been defeated on it twice. In his statement, the First Minister said:
"a minority Government can still move quickly to implement its programme and ideas."—[Official Report, 14 May 2008; c 8533.]
I respectfully suggest to the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning that the Parliament has now spoken twice on the skills strategy and that it would be welcomed if she moved quickly and proposed a new skills strategy with substance. The strategy was not mentioned in the long list that the Deputy First Minister read out.
During the passage of the Budget (Scotland) Bill, Labour lodged amendments that called for the introduction of skills academies and an increase in the number of modern apprenticeships to 50,000. Those amendments were defeated, but the demand for a skilled workforce still exists.
The Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee, of which I am a member, is studying tourism and how we can increase income from the vital tourism industry. Witness after witness has told us that there is a shortage of skilled workers and that it is difficult to get young Scots to come into the sector to pursue a career. Yesterday, the Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism, Mr Mather, gave evidence to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee. When asked about the shortage, he said that it was up to the industry to train its workforce. However, we have been told that, without the thousands of immigrant workers who are employed in tourism, many companies—many of which are in this city—would not be able to cope.
The SNP response is to cut adult modern apprenticeships in tourism and information technology, the minister's excuse for which is that there was not much of a take-up previously. He might want to consider that it should be part of his job to create the right conditions for young Scots and older workers who are seeking a new career to get the training that they require to enter the industry. He will not do that by just leaving things to market forces and relying on incoming workers to plug the gaps. That is hardly an advert for moving Scotland forward or a long-term solution to a long-term problem.
The First Minister referred to new reforms to enhance further the Scottish Government's openness and accountability. Before he acts on that, I suggest that he looks a little closer to home. Mr Salmond is the First Minister of this Parliament, not the First Minister of the SNP. It would move Scotland forward if, just occasionally, he answered some of the questions that are put to him at First Minister's question time. We are now all weary of his attempts at being a third-rate comedy turn. If he was on Simon Cowell's programme "Britain's Got Talent", he would have three crosses within seconds.
If the First Minister is so proud of his Government's policies, he should be prepared to answer questions about them. To date, all we have had is bluff and, what is worse, a level of personal abuse that demeans his office. That shows disrespect not just to members of the Parliament but to the people of Scotland who put us here to ask questions on their behalf.
Questions have been asked about the conduct of several ministers during the past year. When those concerns have been raised with the Presiding Officer, his reply is that such matters lie with the First Minister. Nevertheless, one year on, there is still no sign of the ministerial code. Why has there been such a delay? Why is the code still lying unsigned at the bottom of the First Minister's ministerial box? If he wants a new framework of public accountability, never mind Virginia, it should start at the top with the First Minister.
This is one of the debates that the SNP Government did not want to have—and one can readily understand why. Variously described as disappointing, vacuous and thin, the First Minister's aspirational statement to the Scottish Parliament two weeks ago was notable only for having no aspiration and containing no future plans. The Deputy First Minister was wise in her opening remarks to bin the statement and try to dredge up a few answers to consultations to add to the impression that there are things that the SNP Government is about to do. In opening for the Liberal Democrats, Ross Finnie said quite rightly that, after one year, it is reasonable for the Parliament to feel entitled to something a bit better.
The Scottish Parliament information centre always provides at the back of the chamber various papers and documents that relate to the debate. Before the debate, I looked to see what had been provided. There was zilch—not one document, not even the First Minister's statement. That is not a criticism of SPICe; it is a criticism of the lack of content of the First Minister's statement two weeks ago.
It would be churlish not to acknowledge that the First Minister is good on mood music and style. Indeed, he is a First Minister who has built his second coming on mood music, memorable quips and repartee as a substitute for substance and statesmanship. We are given the impression that, under his Government, the sun shines every day, the Scottish football team always wins and all is well under the beneficent rule of Uncle Alex.
The reality is somewhat different. We now have some evidence as to the shape and direction of the SNP Government. In the first instance, it is not a Government that respects Parliament, as Johann Lamont and a number of other members have pointed out. Indeed, the Government does its best to sideline Parliament. The announcement of the U-turn on the Scottish futures trust—one of the central ideas of the Administration—was made at a media briefing, rather than to the Parliament. The SNP was feart to bring it here. Indeed, the absence of the First Minister today, which David Whitton mentioned, is worthy of note. Having delivered his address two weeks ago, the First Minister leaves it to his subordinates to take the flak for its manifold inaccuracy. Is he feart or is his absence an exercise in arrogance?
To her credit, Nicola Sturgeon has never shirked the unpleasant jobs, but the fact that Mike Russell has been put up to close for the SNP is a dead giveaway of who is in trouble. Even Mike Russell knows that the SNP Government would not give him announcements on Government largesse. After all, he is not entirely one of us. He always manages to convey the impression that he believes that he can do a better job than the current First Minister. That is certainly a difficult—and dangerous—course for an ambitious minister to take.
The softening-up referendum on independence, which is the central plank of the Government's platform—indeed, its very raison d'être—has not been brought to Parliament either. The nationalists are also feart about that, despite the legions of camp followers that Wendy Alexander recently brought to their support.
This is not a Government that keeps its election promises. It has made U-turn after U-turn after U-turn, most of which have not been exposed even to a whiff of Opposition gunfire. Promises on class sizes, police numbers and student debt have all been binned, although the last rites have still to be said over some of them. I should point out that when we were in government, we provided 3,000 extra teachers and reduced class sizes. Yesterday, we learned that reducing class sizes SNP-style is likely to cost in excess of £0.3 billion. However, in its farcical alternative universe, the SNP Government has provided enough funding for that. It should tell that to Steven Purcell, who is busy in Glasgow slashing the education budget and reducing teaching posts to balance his books.
The fact is that SNP class size reductions are dead. However, it is a little like the eerie period after Stalin died; no one dares to go and check, just in case it comes back to life. Well, members can rest easy. Reducing class sizes, writing off student debt and providing £2,000 grants to first-time house buyers are all dead under this Government. I hope only that the new Forth bridge, which we heard about at First Minister's questions, goes all the way over the firth.
In an excellent speech, Jeremy Purvis identified with forensic incisiveness the key information that is required on class sizes and infrastructure to allow Parliament to do its job, set out why Parliament should have that information, and made clear the Government's duplicitous approach to these basic issues of accountability. That is an Achilles heel that will, in due course, bring the Government down.
What should the First Minister's statement have contained? Well, it might have had a full-blown commitment to extending the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002, which, as Ross Finnie said, was a benchmark of its kind when it was brought in by the Liberal Democrats in government. However, the act needs to be extended to include bodies such as Glasgow Housing Association, Kilmarnock prison and the host of bodies that now provide public services that were previously the direct responsibility of Government. The SNP Government is lagging not just behind the standards set by Liberal Democrat in government but behind even the UK Government, which has already consulted on extending freedom of information.
The First Minister's statement might also have contained an aspiration to tackle child poverty and early disadvantage, which are the biggest challenges facing Scotland, and have laid out SNP measures for dealing with them. However, apart from a passing reference to the early years strategy, which has not been developed at all, there was nothing whatever about the issue.
It is somewhat unnerving to see in cold print this sentence in the First Minister's statement:
"We will take forward our manifesto and resist short-cuts or expedient offers that run contrary to it."—[Official Report, 14 May 2008; c 8536.]
This SNP Government has been notorious for the way in which it has ditched manifesto promises—not little ones but wholesale buckets of big ones. We saw that again today as the First Minister ducked what were fairly straightforward questions on the funding of the Forth bridge.
The First Minister's statement is like the emperor's new clothes. It will not do. It is time to move Scotland forward, not backward.
I seem to recall that that was the Labour Party's slogan in a recent general election campaign.
The Liberal Democrats have criticised the Government's statement on moving Scotland forward as being vacuous and thin. I am not clear whether that is Opposition rhetoric or an attempt to protect intellectual property rights, but we shall see.
For its part, the Labour Party has decided to complain about a lack of bills. That criticism is certainly apt from a party whose approach to government can be summed up in three words: legislation, legislation, legislation. We on this side of the chamber are not complaining about the lack of Government laws. Our message is simple: don't bring them on.
In defending the lack of legislation, ministers have pointed out that unnecessary laws impose costs on business and the wider community. Indeed, they have been so persuasive on that point that we will do everything we can to stop the local income tax reaching the statute books and to prevent the damage that it will cause. The local income tax plans are in such a mess that even the Liberal Democrats have attacked them in today's press. It is small wonder that illegality appears to be the very least of the problems that confront the policy.
Although we do not criticise the Government for failing to legislate, we criticise it for failing to be ambitious. It is not enough for the Government to congratulate itself simply because it is viewed as doing a better job than its predecessor. If the bar were set any lower, ministers would be in danger of tripping over it.
Some interesting contributions were made in the debate. David McLetchie mentioned the civil war in America, whereas Malcolm Chisholm steadfastly avoided mentioning the one in the Labour Party. On the theme of the American civil war, Kenny Gibson read out Scotland on Sunday, a tactic that Abraham Lincoln would have used at Gettysburg had Scotland on Sunday been published at the time. Frank McAveety called for humility from the Government; I sincerely hope that he is not a man who takes disappointment badly.
Murdo Fraser urged the Scottish Government to work constructively with the Westminster Government in the national interest. Robert Brown praised Jeremy Purvis's speech; I cannot praise enough the eloquent and wise remarks that were made by Murdo Fraser. We see no point in urging the UK Government to work constructively with the Scottish Government, given that the UK Government is unable to work constructively even with the UK Government. That is not a problem with which we will be saddled for much longer.
On a positive note, the SNP seems to have recognised over recent weeks the different approach that a Conservative Government will bring. Only last Friday, David Cameron pledged to show the Scottish Government respect. By Tuesday, Joe FitzPatrick had issued a press release in which he condemned the UK Government for a lack of respect. It is nice to see that Joe FitzPatrick is as capable of parroting Conservative lines as he is nationalist ones. I look forward to his colleagues taking a similar approach, as indeed they may have started to do. On PPP, John Swinney has already made the tacit admission that, as someone once said, there is no alternative. It is clear that the Scottish futures trust, whichever of the 14 options the Government proceeds with, is PPP. We do not yet know which relative it is or whether it is a member of the same family, but it will be interesting nonetheless to see how ministers manage to cover up the fact that the Scottish futures trust is private finance, whatever else they choose to describe it as.
Of course, it is no secret that we have found common cause with the Government on some issues over the past year. We will continue to adopt that pragmatic approach, which is aimed at delivering Conservative policies. As other members have said, we welcome the Government's announcement on its drugs policy, which is a very positive move. We also welcome the decisions that it has taken to scrap road tolls, end ring fencing for local government and reshape Scottish Enterprise, all of which it lifted from the Conservative manifesto. Today, we heard encouraging words from Nicola Sturgeon on rural schools. I assume that she, too, lifted what she said from the Conservative manifesto.
We look forward to the Cabinet touring the towns and villages of Scotland over the summer. It will be interesting to see whether any residents are allowed to sit in on those meetings to listen to the great discussions on how the Government wants to move Scotland forward.
We are happy to give the Government credit where it has done well. We are happy to see that there will be more police and that cuts in business rates for small businesses will be made more quickly. However, the Government has strayed from the manifesto in too many areas and ministers have got into a whole heap of trouble as a result. The Government may have abandoned plans to introduce a £2,000 grant for home buyers but, in view of the additional costs that are about to be put on to home sellers with the single seller survey, it would be well advised to consider the introduction of a £2,000 grant to home sellers to cover the cost.
When I said that ministers have got into trouble where they have strayed from the manifesto, the manifesto to which I was referring was, of course, ours. If the Government wants to move Scotland forward, it should ditch what is left of its own manifesto and pick up what is left to implement in ours.
On occasion, the previous Executive was accused by Opposition parties of submitting motions to the Parliament that were self-congratulatory. Although there may have been a small amount of justification for those accusations, the current Scottish Government has taken self-congratulation to new limits. The Government does not only blow its own trumpet, it has an entire brass band honking out an anthem of self praise.
However, if we dampen down the joyful cacophony—it is perhaps a little unkind to refer to Kenneth Gibson and Brian Adam in that way—the melody is not so sweet. The motion trots out a shopping list of proclaimed Government achievements, but many of those claims of success are premature to say the least. For example, it refers to increases in police numbers, but as George Foulkes found out by way of a written parliamentary question, the number of police on the beat in Scotland fell by 45 during the first year of the SNP Government, so now it has to find 1,045 police officers by 2011.
The reduction in rates for small businesses has come into effect. I am sure that it will be popular with those who benefit. The rates bill for my constituency office in Dumfries is significantly reduced. I assure ministers that I will use the additional allowance to the benefit of my constituents. Tax cuts are usually popular with beneficiaries but, after two months, there can be no evidence of whether that tax cut will lead to the regeneration of Scotland's town centres as the Government has proclaimed it will.
The motion also refers to
"the new partnership with local government"—
more often referred to as the historic concordat—which is much heralded by the Scottish ministers. Local authorities are becoming aware of the cost to them of that concordat, through which they receive the blame if the Government fails to deliver on its promises. Directors of education estimate that the Government's pledge to reduce class sizes in primaries 1 to 3 to only 18 will cost an additional £422 million to implement but, as Frank McAveety pointed out, there has been an abject failure on the part of ministers to address the cost of the pledge. Today, we read that the Government has now messed up the curriculum for excellence, too.
The voluntary sector also feels the squeeze as local authorities struggle to balance the books: £900,000 was cut from the Cyrenians in Aberdeen, £86,000 was cut from Age Concern in the Highlands and £400,000 was cut from the Loch Arthur project in Dumfries and Galloway. Those are facts, not scare stories; we are not scaremongering, as we were accused of doing.
One omission from the motion's roll of honour—although the cabinet secretary referred to it in her speech—is the abolition of the graduate endowment. Is that because the Government is embarrassed at abandoning its promise to ditch student debt? [Interruption.] As I said, the cabinet secretary mentioned it in her speech, but it is not in the motion. Or is it omitted, as Murdo Fraser and Frank McAveety pointed out, because one of the unexpected consequences of that inadequate legislation, the Graduate Endowment Abolition (Scotland) Act 2008, is that postgraduates whose repayments had been deferred because they are undertaking another qualification are now receiving demands for repayment, possibly with interest?
I am not saying that there is nothing to be welcomed in the Government's programme: there are several measures that the previous Executive initiated—Malcolm Chisholm referred to one—and others that travel in the same direction. James Kelly welcomed the completion of the M74.
Will Elaine Murray give way?
I will give way to Margo MacDonald because I owe her a drink.
On local government finance and the cuts that are being made at local level, does Elaine Murray insist that, had her party been returned to government, there would have been no cuts?
It would have been down to each local authority to decide on its own priorities, but my party would not have imposed a council tax freeze. We would not have threatened to withdraw money from councils if they did not implement a council tax freeze; it would have been encouraged but not imposed.
I will be interested to learn more about the pilot projects in the environment portfolio. I hope that they will be more than just an excuse for the weekly ministerial engagements that the Minister for Environment undertakes in my constituency.
There are also major issues of policy development that are not mentioned in the cheerful motion. As Murdo Fraser asked, what about the Government's much-vaunted local income tax? Not only is it not local, and not only does it take away from councils the ability to make local decisions on revenue, but expert opinion believes that it might not even be legal. Professor Alan Page believes that the proposed tax is likely to be tested in court. Professor Himsworth believes that it is in contravention of article 9.3 of the European Charter of Local Self-Government. Professor Richard Kerley stated that up to 100,000 pensioners could be worse off under the new system.
As other members have asked, what about the Scottish futures trust, the business plan for which the Government tried to sneak out at a conference last week? Having read through the 50-plus pages of mainly meaningless verbiage that the business plan contains, I am not surprised that the Government did not want to draw attention to it. It looks more like a school project than a major policy document. Now that the business plan is out, the Scottish futures trust pleases neither the critics of PPP, who correctly identify it as simply another variant of private finance in the public sector, nor the business community, which is concerned about some of the anti-private sector rhetoric that has accompanied the trust's protracted birth.
The motion mentions food and fuel costs—and, as always, blames Westminster. It is always the big boys that did it and ran away. As Ross Finnie asked, where is the Government's energy strategy? Is it just about turning down wind turbine developments in SNP-held constituencies?
The Government congratulates itself on a list of small, easy, populist measures, but it will be judged on how it deals with major issues of policy: how the finances for Scotland's local authorities are raised; how sufficient funding for infrastructure investment is to be levered in; how a secure energy supply is to be sustained; how to ensure that our population has the necessary skills, now and in the future, to support sustainable economic growth; and how to promote social justice and support vulnerable people in Scotland's communities. On those issues, the Government fails.
The First Minister might believe that he is the greatest politician that Scotland has ever known and his ministers might be blinded by their own egos but, slowly but surely, the scales are falling from the eyes of the Scottish people. There is no evidence that, after its first year, the Government is moving Scotland in the right direction. On the issues that matter, SNP stands for "still no progress".
I find myself in some difficulty, because the opening sentences of my speaking notes say:
"This has been a very valuable and useful debate. I welcome the contributions and views that have been expressed".
I publicly dissociate myself from that opinion. This has not been a "valuable and useful debate." It is of some significance that not one member has declared an interest—because there has been no interest in the debate. Outside the chamber, there will be no interest in the debate. By insisting on holding this debate, Robert Brown has succeeded in wasting everybody's time. Labour members have been very cute—they knew that first of all.
No, Mr Brown, do not waste any more of my time. My keynote for this summing-up speech is just to get through it.
At the start of the debate, only three out of 16 Lib Dem members were present. They were not going to have Mr Brown wasting their time. Mr Chisholm did worse—only six out of 41 Labour members were in the chamber for the start of the debate. Even Mr Fraser managed just three out of 16. Those absent members knew that this afternoon's debate was pointless. It was a pointless occasion, and it was one of those occasions that do the Parliament no good whatever. Let us be ruthlessly honest about it: this was political theatre for those who are paid to be here. The debate had no other meaning.
Will the minister give way?
No, I will not give way. My intention is just to get through this. I just want to get through it and go home. Just understand that, all right? [Interruption.]
Order.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Is it appropriate for a minister, in responding to a debate, to say that he is here only "to get through it"?
Yup.
That is for the chamber to judge.
It is appropriate for ministers to tell the truth, which is what I intend to do.
Let us consider the record of Labour in opposition when it matters and the issues that it has brought to the Parliament. In the past year, Labour has had 19 debates and of those—this is a fact and facts are chiels that winna ding—only five contained a policy proposal and one of them was on the Calman commission, which does not count as a policy in any way. That leaves four policy proposals, of which only two were new ideas. Labour in opposition is not moving Scotland forward, it is moving itself backward. There was nothing new in the five Lib Dem debates either—not one new policy was proposed. Even the Tories have a better record than that.
This afternoon, we have heard several dismal speeches that were designed only to carp. I accept that many of them were fairly entertaining, but I want to single out one that was not. I can describe Johann Lamont's speech only as a sour and bitter attack full of smears and false innuendo all shrouded in a cloak of false indignation about parliamentary accountability. What annoys Johann Lamont and so many other Labour members is not that we have failed to be accountable but that the people of Scotland like what we are doing.
I understand the frustration that somebody who has spent their career saying that something cannot be done will feel when they discover not only that it is being done but that it is being done well, but my advice to Johann Lamont and to other Labour members is to get over it and start contributing to the debate. That has been the constant theme of the debate. There can be no criticism of things that are not happening—that is not possible.
Will the minister give way?
No, I will not.
The criticism is of what has been happening—the successes that are taking place and the intention to continue to make things happen. Let me be absolutely clear on the issue of smaller class sizes. I am happy to do so, as it is a policy with which I am proud to be associated.
Will the minister give way on that point?
Smaller class sizes are vital to Scotland. We have argued for them constantly. The concordat with local government creates the framework for their operation.
Will the minister give way?
Will the minister give way?
No, Mr Fraser.
Councils and the Government are working hard to achieve that.
Order. Mr Butler, sit down.
No amount of self-serving, head-of-a-pin, pettifogging opposition will stop smaller class sizes in Scotland. That is my message to Jeremy Purvis.
No, I will not give way—I am sorry. I want to finish and I am going to finish.
Order. The minister has made it clear that he will not give way.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I understand that the standing orders require members to treat one another with courtesy. To launch a personal attack on a member and then refuse an intervention from that member is surely the height of discourtesy.
It is entirely up to the speaker whether they take an intervention. I have only just come into the chair, so I am not aware of any earlier exchanges.
Presiding Officer—
Will the minister give way?
No, I am sorry.
Order. The minister has made it clear that he is not giving way.
Believe me, Presiding Officer, I am showing all the courtesy that I can summon at this stage in the debate.
Some of the criticism has involved accusing the Government of being populist, but the real objection is that we are popular, not populist. The Government's mission is to meet and match the rising ambitions of the people of Scotland and to improve their daily lives. That is a popular ambition and one that we will fulfil. Moreover, people know it. Research that was carried out between May and November showed that trust in the Scottish Government had increased by 20 percentage points in a year, from 51 to 71 per cent, which is twice the level of public trust that is placed in the Westminster Government.
We have laid out a range of proposals and activities that we will bring forward. The First Minister will set out the full details of our legislative programme in September. As he did two weeks ago, he will mark a visionary course for Scotland—one that is full of detail, that will continue to drive Scotland forward and that will appeal to the Scottish people. The only critics of it will be those who do not understand the thirst and ambition of the Scottish people for change.