First Minister’s Question Time
Engagements
1. To ask the First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-02132)
Engagements to take forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.
Excellent. We are always delighted when the First Minister keeps his eye on the ball.
The Scottish Government has missed its 18-week waiting time target from referral to treatment. Month after month, it still fails to hit its target of treating accident and emergency patients within four hours, even after diluting the target. Bedblocking—which means people left languishing in beds because the care system has nowhere for them to go—has gone up 300 per cent.
The national health service is going backwards on the First Minister’s watch. Can he remind us why he still has confidence in his health secretary, Alex Neil?
Johann Lamont started off by saying that she is delighted. Somehow, the words “delighted” and “Johann Lamont” do not square at First Minister’s questions.
All of us should agree that the NHS is facing a substantial challenge. It is treating many more patients. I think that all of us agree that the people who work in the NHS are doing a tremendous job for Scotland.
We always want to do better, and a lot of the statistics need to be improved. That is what we intend to ensure happens. However, we should remember two things. First, the satisfaction levels with the NHS in Scotland among the patients—the people who experience treatment in the NHS—are extremely high. Secondly, if we compare the statistics that were released this week with what was happening when Johann Lamont was a minister, we can see substantial improvement. Because she mentioned accident and emergency services in particular, I remind the Labour benches that Andy Kerr, who was then the Minister for Health and Community Care, was delighted with a performance of 87 per cent in the health service. The figure that Johann Lamont is complaining about now is 93 per cent. Yes, there is substantial room for improvement, but it is passing strange that the Labour Party was delighted with 87 per cent when it was in office but condemns 93 per cent when the Scottish National Party is in office.
I promise the First Minister that I will be delighted when he stops displaying such disgraceful complacency about what is happening in the NHS. It is patients and others who are expressing concerns, not simply politicians. It would appear that, although the First Minister says that he is reflecting on the statistics, he does not believe them, because they show that the NHS on his watch is failing. Will he listen, then, to the professionals?
Dr Clifford Mann, the president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said:
“The college has been warning for some time now about extreme pressure in the unscheduled healthcare system. These are most evident in the A&E departments and create sometimes overwhelming challenges”.
The British Medical Association Scotland said:
“Whilst the government is painting a picture of a well-staffed NHS, the reality is that doctors are working under extreme pressure and workforce shortages and high vacancy rates are significant contributing factors to this.”
Last week, we found that only 67 people in this chamber had confidence in the First Minister’s health secretary. Is it not the case that they might be the only 67 people in this country who trust him on health?
I regard with great interest the comments of health professionals, wherever they come from. However, when we are looking at emergency medicine, surely the key comments that we should consider are those of Dr Jason Long, who is chair of the College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland. On 28 May this year—so this is a very current quote—he said that the college:
“continues to support the Scottish Government’s investment in and commitment to the specialty of Emergency Medicine and the work of Emergency Departments in Scotland.”
There is a substantial body of opinion that indicates that. Dr Martin McKechnie, the vice-chair of the Scottish board of the College of Emergency Medicine said:
“We have had a lot of support and investment in the last 18 months from the Government and we are beginning, I hope, to feel and to see the effects of some of these changes.”
Those are medical professionals, at the front end of accident and emergency, who are commenting on the emergency care plan that the health secretary implemented. That plan has brought about an improvement in the most recent accident and emergency statistics, so that 93.3 per cent of people are being treated within four hours.
Johann Lamont said that I am complacent about these things. In the first part of my answer, I said that we are looking to improve the statistics. That is our aim and intention for the health service. I dealt with that issue in some measure. It is fair to compare the 93.3 per cent figure for March 2014 with the position in April 2006, when performance of 87.5 per cent was hailed by the then health secretary, Andy Kerr, as showing
“that the vast majority of A & E departments are meeting the four hour target ... Investment and reform in the NHS is paying off”.
If we are looking for complacency, I suggest that the Government of which Johann Lamont was a member was complacent in 2006, whereas the health secretary in this Government is putting in the investment to improve things in 2014.
Maybe I should remind the First Minister that it took an elderly man, waiting on a trolley, to have his photograph on the front page of the Daily Record to get the emergency care plan put in place.
Again, we have evidence that the First Minister will quote people who agree with him but does not listen to people who tell him that there are real problems. The First Minister can trade statistics and alibis and talk about the past, but he does not seem to realise that this is about real people.
I shall, in confidence, supply the First Minister with the details of a patient whose partner wrote to us and wants her experience to be known—she wishes to remain anonymous, so let us call her Mary. She went to her general practitioner with a lump on her breast. Her GP referred her as a priority to the Royal Alexandra hospital for cancer screening. No appointment came. In pain, and with the lump growing, she went to the accident and emergency unit, only to be told that she could not be treated, because she was on a pathway—or rather, waiting for an appointment. She did not get an appointment within the Government’s target time. The lump grew, and after weeks of worrying she was forced to pay for private healthcare.
That is the distressing reality of what missing targets means for patients. Can the First Minister tell Mary, and all the real people who make up the statistics that he is trying to play down, why they should have confidence in his NHS?
Any case that is referred to me or to the health secretary will be treated seriously.
No one has ever claimed that every patient receives ideal treatment from our national health service, or indeed any national health service. However, our national health service in Scotland is something of which we can still be really proud.
If we want to look at patient experience, we should also consider the balance of the patient opinion website, where patient after patient reflects on the excellent treatment that they have received from our national health service. The site is an important innovation, in my estimation, because it is in the nature of human affairs that it is often instances in which people have failed or the health service has failed to deliver excellent treatment that come to public attention. Therefore, it is important that the patient opinion website gives the balance of opinion of the many hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who, year on year, receive excellent treatment from our national health service.
Johann Lamont complains when I reflect that the statistics that we see now, although they are not ideal and in some cases have yet to meet the targets to which we aspire, are, in every single case, superior to the statistics when the Labour Party left office in 2007. In its 2007 manifesto, the Labour Party said:
“Health care across Scotland has never been better ... Waiting times are the lowest ever despite a big increase in operations.”
Well, we have had more big increases in operations and attendance since then, and waiting times are better than they were when the Labour Party left office. In political terms, the central question that the Labour Party has to answer is why, when it was patting itself on the back when it was in office, it is attacking the Scottish National Party now, when every part of the health service is performing to higher standards.
Like the First Minister, we recognise the good things that are happening in the NHS and we celebrate them—of course we do. However, the problem with the First Minister is that he wants to ignore the problems that are emerging, rather than tackle them. We want to make progress. We want to get better. On his watch, we are going backwards.
The First Minister said that he is not complacent, but he ignores his own statistics and failed targets. He ignores the first-hand views of the experts and professionals. Most damningly, he ignores the lived reality of patients in Scotland. The First Minister is in denial about the pressures on the NHS on his watch, and about the failures in patient care. The fact is that he is more at home in the imagined world after a yes vote than in the real world of life under the SNP Government.
For those who are waiting in accident and emergency, for those who are waiting for treatment, for those who are waiting in pain, will the First Minister admit that he is failing to manage our NHS, and will he get on with the day job that patients across Scotland so desperately need him to do?
As I have pointed out, I could go on to talk about in-patient waits, out-patient waits and referral to treatment waits, as well as accident and emergency. On every single one of those measures, on this Government’s watch, treatment in the national health service has improved. Johann Lamont says that things are getting worse, but every one of those statistics is much better than it was when the Labour Party was in office and Johann Lamont was a Government minister.
Let me tell members what has happened to the national health service on this watch. Despite the Westminster cutbacks, national health service staff have increased under the SNP. Staffing is up by 6.7 per cent. We have protected in real terms the front-line NHS budget, which is something that the Labour Party pledged to do in Scotland and has not done in Wales. On patient satisfaction, real people in the national health service say that 87 per cent of patients are satisfied with their local health service. That figure is up 7 per cent on the SNP’s watch. We have cleaner hospitals. Clostridium difficile in patients aged over 65 has reduced by 83.8 per cent. I remember when Jackie Baillie said that we were going to be the health infection centre of the world, and then discovered that she was talking about what had happened under the Labour Government.
We abolished prescription charges in the national health service from April 2011, which showed that we aspire to the original foundation principle that the health service should be available to all, regardless of their income. All those things have happened under the SNP. Our national health service, a public service, is protected by the SNP while being neglected by Labour in Wales and every single one of those statistics is better than when Johann Lamont was in office.
Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)
2. To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. (S4F-02126)
I have no plans in the near future.
Yesterday morning, John Swinney was asked 11 times what the set-up costs of an independent Scotland would be, and he was unable to answer. Within three hours, the First Minister conjured up a figure of £250 million to £300 million. Will the First Minister today break down that figure for us by department, so that we can see exactly how that number was reached?
The £200 million figure that I quoted came from Professor Dunleavy of the London School of Economics. He came into the press conference yesterday because he was cited during the weekend, by Ruth Davidson’s colleagues in the United Kingdom Government, as the expert who could estimate the set-up costs that we would be likely to face when we establish the departments of an independent Scotland. The figure of £2.7 billion was cited by the UK Government.
Unfortunately Professor Dunleavy found out that his name was being taken in vain, and he embarked on a series of comments, describing the £2.7 billion figure as “bizarrely inaccurate”, and accusing the Treasury of “badly misrepresenting” LSE research. He tweeted:
“Appears to take minimum Whitehall reorganization cost of £15m and multiply by 180 agencies to get £2.7bn. Overstates maybe 12 times?”
He said that the Treasury figures were “bizarrely inaccurate” and then estimated the set-up cost to be £200 million.
All I would say to Ruth Davidson, apart from mentioning the basic unwisdom of introducing Professor Dunleavy into this question time, is that if the chosen expert of the UK Government comes up with an estimate and I describe it as reasonable, is that not a way forward, as opposed to misrepresenting his work, overstating by 12 times and attempting to traduce the reputation of the London School of Economics?
The First Minister wants to talk about Professor Dunleavy, so let us talk about Professor Dunleavy. He wrote a blog yesterday, which I have here. He said that the Financial Times asked him about set-up costs and that he gave, in his own words, a “guesstimate”, which, again, in his own words,
“only covered Whitehall reorganizations, not whole scale new policy systems.”
I think that the First Minister would be on much stronger territory challenging the Treasury’s figures if he could come up with his own. We have 100 days to go and the SNP’s case seems seriously to be resting on a “guesstimate” by a professor responding to a press inquiry. [Interruption.]
Order. Let us hear Ms Davidson.
I find it worrying that the First Minister has no intention of telling the people of Scotland how his paperclip economics add up. The fact is that he should have the numbers, because two years ago the finance secretary said that he would set out detailed set-up costs. [Interruption.]
Order.
Let me quote paragraph 49 of his memo, which states:
“Work is currently underway in finance and the Office of the Chief Economic Adviser to build a comprehensive overview of the institutions, costs and staff numbers which I will draw together and provide an update to cabinet on in June.”
That was June 2012. Taxpayer-funded civil servants were working on giving the Government the costs more than two years ago. The Cabinet has the numbers. The First Minister has the numbers. Why will he not let Scotland see the numbers?
The paper I have here is the “Scotland analysis”, apparently the most comprehensive piece of work that the United Kingdom Treasury has ever produced. Professor Dunleavy, who Danny Alexander yesterday tried to write out of history, appears on page 38, which says:
“The Institute for Government (IfG) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) estimate the average cost for a new policy department ... to be approximately £15 million. ... If this cost were incurred for all 180 organisations, the total cost would be £2.7 billion.”
It was the UK Government that introduced Professor Dunleavy, who I must say is an estimable person—I have never met him, but he sounds like the sort of person I want to meet. It was Professor Dunleavy who said that the UK was guilty of gross exaggeration and was multiplying his work by a factor of 12, and who then produced the estimate of £200 million as being closer to the mark.
Danny Alexander, when faced with a torrent of questioning as to why the UK Government was relying on a professor who was saying that it was badly misrepresenting his work, said “No no, we’re not talking about Professor Dunleavy; it was actually Professor Young that we were relying on.” However, then Professor Young told the Financial Times that the £1.5 billion estimate was not his but was extrapolated from another range of estimates. Looking at his paper, I see that Professor Young said:
“The UK position is to make pessimistic predictions, warnings, and the occasional threat.”
Professor Young is somebody I want to meet as well.
When the two professors relied upon by the United Kingdom Treasury to produce the ammunition to destroy the case for Scottish independence end up backing the case in the estimates that they produce, it is time for Ruth Davidson to revise her questioning strategy. [Interruption.]
Order. I call Mr Rennie to ask question 3.
Cabinet (Meetings)
3. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. (S4F-02125)
Issues of importance to the people of Scotland.
We were told that the white paper was the most comprehensive and detailed blueprint of its kind ever published, but it does not even include the costs of getting started. [Interruption.]
Order. Let us hear Mr Rennie, please.
Members: Yes, go on.
Come on, behave. [Laughter.]
The Scottish Government’s transition costs document, which Ruth Davidson rightly referred to but on which the First Minister refused to answer, was written two years ago. Will the First Minister tell us where it is?
The depth of examination in the questioning and the combination of better together leave a whole range of opportunities for answer. Yes, the documents that we published yesterday have comprehensive information and make a range of forecasts and estimates, but the difference between the document that Willie Rennie’s lot published yesterday and the document published by the Scottish Government is that his lot’s document has been destroyed by the very experts who were cited to support it.
The other difference is that the Scottish Government looks forward to developing the Scottish economy and Scottish society. We do not claim the Westminster bonus of the United Kingdom Government, which nobody in Scotland believes they will ever see from the United Kingdom Treasury. What we say is that, working together, we can achieve higher employment, higher productivity and a better balance of working population, and that by matching and marrying the resources and talents of our people, we can build a more prosperous and just society. If Willie Rennie thinks that the miserable, destroyed document that Danny Alexander presented yesterday is going to match up to a positive vision of the future, he is going to get the same disappointment in September that he experienced last week.
The answer to “Where is it?” was very long but did not answer the question. That is important for the First Minister, because if people vote for independence in September then find out that the First Minister was wrong on the costs, there is no way back. The First Minister scoffs, but he needs to answer the question. If there is work, why will he not show it? If there is not, why has it not been done? We know that he is an expert on everyone else’s figures, and he now has the chance to put them right. It is simple: he can publish the document that was produced two years ago and which sets out the costs for the transition to an independent Scotland. Will he agree to do that today?
If Willie Rennie cares to examine the document that was published yesterday, he will see not just projections for 2016-17 and the two years following that, but a 15-year projection for growth and achievement in the Scottish economy. Specifically, the document looks forward to a 0.3 per cent increase in productivity, a better balance in the working-age population and increasing employment in Scotland—by 3.5 per cent. It also sets out the mechanisms and measures by which we can achieve that, using the powers and tools of independence.
If we manage that together as a society, we will have an extra £5 billion of additional tax revenue—£1,000 a head for every man, woman and child in Scotland, or £2,000 per family—not given to us on a plate but that lets us work together as a society so that we can create a better, more prosperous and fairer future for the people of Scotland.
Royal Mail (Universal Service Obligation)
4. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to reports that the Royal Mail has called into question its ability to fulfil the universal service obligation and what the impact could be on rural communities. (S4F-02128)
Postal services are a lifeline for many of Scotland’s communities, particularly in our nation’s more remote rural areas. Those communities depend on the delivery service guaranteed by the Royal Mail’s universal service obligation. That is why it is so deeply concerning to see that the Royal Mail has concerns about its ability to fulfil the universal service obligation.
We can reflect on two things. First, it is disgraceful that this public asset was sold at a knock-down price. Secondly, having the regulation of mail in the hands of a Scottish Parliament will provide us with the opportunity to ensure that the universal postal service is there in the best interests of communities across the country.
Prior to the cut-price sell off, we were given specific assurances that the universal service obligation would be maintained. As recently as last month, Vince Cable said:
“The sale of shares in Royal Mail has delivered on our commitment to protect the universal postal service and safeguard vital services for the taxpayer.”
My local MP, Danny Alexander, also once said—
Can we get a question, Mr Thompson?
Yes, Presiding Officer. Danny Alexander said:
“We must continue to be vigilant, and safeguard the Universal Service Obligation at all costs.”
Does the First Minister believe that those Lib Dem MPs are to be trusted?
The question of trust between Danny Alexander and Vince Cable is very pertinent to the events of the past 24 hours. No doubt there will be speculation on who commissioned the poll in Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and whether Vince Cable knew about that. The only thing that is certain is that we know what the results of that poll were.
I believe that that undermining or questioning of the universal service obligation—let us call it a questioning, because Royal Mail executives have spoken about a questioning of and a concern about the universal service obligation—brings very quickly into the front line of public discussion something that those of us who opposed the Royal Mail’s privatisation were deeply concerned about. We will be looking for more assurances that the universal service obligation guarantee still stands. Whether we get those assurances from Danny Alexander or Vince Cable, I suspect that we should get them quickly or we might not get them at all.
“The Land of Scotland and the Common Good”
5. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the recommendations in the land reform review group’s final report, “The Land of Scotland and the Common Good”. (S4F-02133)
It is very important that the Scottish Government, the Parliament and all stakeholders have time to consider what is a very substantial report. We have already announced that we agree on the importance of knowing who owns Scotland and, last weekend, we announced the timetable for completing the land register.
As Claire Baker will be aware, the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee is taking evidence from the review group and stakeholders this week and next. Thereafter, the Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Paul Wheelhouse, will provide further detail on how we intend to take forward Scotland’s land reform agenda at the community land Scotland conference in Skye on 7 June.
Will the First Minister support the report’s direction of travel and rise to its challenges? The vast majority of those challenges can be met in this Parliament. Is he prepared to make quick progress where possible?
The minister’s U-turn on Sunday on the timescale for the completion of land registration was welcome. Does the First Minister recognise that one of the review group’s key calls is for greater transparency over ownership? Will the Government introduce the regulations that would ensure that the land register contains details of beneficial ownership and discloses the true owner of a foreign company?
The land register is very important. Therefore, I am glad that the timetable for completing it is, I think, welcomed by Claire Baker. She asks whether we are supporting the report’s “direction of travel”. The answer is yes. That is not the case for every specific proposal. As she knows, for example, we do not agree with the de-rating of agricultural land being questioned, because we have already investigated that issue. Therefore, supporting the direction of travel is a good way to put it. I look forward to this Parliament’s examination of the issue.
I was disappointed that Claire Baker—or perhaps it was her press officer—rather misrepresented what the report says when she suggested that there had not been substantial action from the Scottish National Party since we came to power in 2007. The report says:
“since 2003, there has been no land reform programme.”
However, there has been a re-establishment of the community land fund, which was effectively abolished by the Labour Party. Supporting such a fund is quite important if we want communities to buy land. I am sure that Claire Baker will today—[Interruption.]
Claire Baker says that that is nonsense. I am afraid that it is not nonsense. If she looks into the detail, she will see that there was no fund to enable communities to buy land until it was re-established by this Government. Therefore, I am sure that she will be the first to welcome today’s announcement that the Scottish Government’s land fund—re-established by the Scottish National Party—is supporting the community ownership of the Carloway estate on Lewis with a grant of more than £200,000. That will enable the purchase of 11,000 acres of land, including the site of the renowned Callanish standing stones, that will come into community ownership. That is another important stepping stone towards our target of 1 million acres under community ownership by 2020.
Like others, I welcome the agreement of a target date for completion of the register. I wonder whether the Government regrets voting against my amendments to the Land Registration etc (Scotland) Bill, which would have done just that. However, why can the Government accept that recommendation on timetabling but reject out of hand and so quickly the key recommendations on tax without leaving any time for scrutiny of the report?
We are considering the various aspects of the report. For example, I mentioned the rating of agricultural land. The Government had already investigated and reported on that in the past year or so, which is why we pointed that out in our reaction to the report. However, we are extremely interested in the report’s direction of travel, which is why I set out the parliamentary and ministerial timetable for responding to its substantive suggestions.
I welcome Patrick Harvie’s acknowledgement of the importance of the land register. I am sure that, like me, he is enthused by the reinvigorated land purchase fund for communities, which is taking us on the way to the enormous but achievable target of 1 million acres being in community ownership by 2020.
Business Rates Incentivisation Scheme
6. To ask the First Minister when the business rates incentivisation scheme will become operational. (S4F-02138)
As Gavin Brown knows, it was introduced on 1 April 2012. In general terms, the Scottish Government offers the most competitive business rates package in the United Kingdom and, as he also knows, supports 90,000 businesses through the small business bonus scheme.
It became operational in 2012, apparently. That is an interesting definition of operational. In year 1, the targets were changed mid-year and nobody was paid. In year 2, no targets were set at all. We are now in year 3 and no targets have been set for this year. Can the First Minister name a single council that has been incentivised by the scheme?
As I am sure Gavin Brown would want to acknowledge—[Interruption.]—well, okay, I am not sure that he wants to acknowledge it, but he will hear it anyway—Convention of Scottish Local Authorities leaders decided in May 2013 that they did not want to consider reviewing the 2012-13 BRIS targets until the final non-domestic rates audited figures for 2012-13 became available in February this year.
The COSLA leadership reconsidered its position at the 25 April 2014 meeting. A significant event had not occurred and, as a result, it was unable to agree the revised 2012-13 targets. I understand that that was by a majority of 17 to 15.
Mr Swinney will meet COSLA in friendship and co-operation and will try to agree a way forward. The scheme was introduced to incentivise local authorities and, therefore, we wish to see agreement on how the incentive is dispersed.
I say in all honesty to Gavin Brown that he might like to look into the detail. Because he is such a careful scrutineer of public money, he will want an incentive scheme to be paid out for business innovation and not just because there has been a lack of successful appeals against the rating system. Whatever else the Tory party is known for and whatever else he does or does not do, Gavin Brown looks at the detail and the facts. Therefore, I am sure that he will back Mr Swinney’s efforts to take the scheme forward properly.