Engagements
I have a range of engagements that will carry forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.
How disappointingly mundane. On Tuesday, the First Minister told a conference that he was leading the greatest step forward for civilisation since the hunter-gatherers put down roots 10,000 years ago. I thought that, this afternoon, he might at least be ushering in an epoch of world peace or perhaps personally parting the North Sea for the interconnector to Norway. Perhaps he could just try to keep his promise to protect the national health service budget in real terms. Why is he cutting Scotland’s NHS budget by £300 million?
The budget to health boards—the revenue budget of the NHS—has been protected in real terms by the Government. Of course, that is unlike what would have happened if the great misfortune had occurred—which would almost be approximate to parting the North Sea and just about as likely, incidentally—and the Labour Party had come to office. I know that Iain Gray has spent a lot of time this week reprising the election campaign and I do not want to add to his agony, but does he not remember saying on “Newsnight Scotland” a year ago:
See what the First Minister did there? I asked him a question about NHS budgets and he gave me an answer about Labour’s manifesto, the Welsh Labour Party and NHS board budgets. That was not the promise that he made. He promised that a Scottish National Party Government would protect the health budget, but it has not done that. Since the First Minister was re-elected in May, we have had fewer doctors, midwives and nurses. He has got rid of 1,700 nurses since 2009. Does he still have the brass neck to say that he is protecting our NHS?
All the commitments that we made to the national health service are being met, and we will protect the NHS budget. Table 7.02 on page 64 of the “Scottish Spending Review 2011 and Draft Budget 2012-13” shows how the NHS budget is being protected. We pledged to pass on the consequentials, which Iain Gray would not commit to do during the election campaign. We have done that; he will find that on page 58 of that document. We promised to protect the national health service and ensure shorter waiting times and treatment that continues to improve. That means extra investment of £1 billion over the next four years. He will see that in table 8.03 of the document. The SNP Government has met—indeed, more than met—each and every commitment that we gave the national health service.
Table 1.06 in a financial scrutiny unit document on the draft budget shows that the change over four years in the total health spend is -£319 million. That is a cut. If the First Minister cared to examine nurse and midwife numbers, he would find that there are fewer nurses and midwives in our NHS now than there were in 2007 when he became First Minister. However, members do not have to take my word for it; let us ask the people who really know. The Royal College of Nursing states:
In May, people had the opportunity to judge between Alex Salmond and Iain Gray and, fairly resoundingly, they decided on the Scottish National Party Administration. I named the three key tables in the spending plans, but Iain Gray chose not to reference them; instead, he glided across to the budget including capital spending, presumably oblivious to the fact that the Conservative Party is cutting capital spending in Scotland by 36 per cent over a four-year period. That is the dreadful Conservative Party, but it adopted the plans that were left to it by the Labour Administration.
No matter where the First Minister goes in his budget, it unravels. Last week, he promised that the Government would invest in capital infrastructure. Then the Centre for Public Policy for Regions examined the figures and we discovered that the Government is cutting capital investment even faster than George Osborne and the Tories are. The First Minister promised to protect businesses, but then we discovered that he is taking an extra £850 million off them. Last Thursday, he promised to protect universities, but on Friday he gave the University of Abertay Dundee five weeks to merge into the University of Dundee. To paraphrase Al Gore, is not the truth just an inconvenience for the First Minister?
Last week, I wondered why Iain Gray kept asking about closures, since there will be no closures of colleges or universities in Scotland. Then, as Mike Russell mentioned in the education debate earlier, we found out that one of Ed Miliband’s advisers is advocating the closure of half of England’s universities. It is no wonder that Iain Gray was obsessed by closure.
Prime Minister (Meetings)
A meeting with the Prime Minister is not planned in the near future, but no doubt we will get round to it.
The First Minister knows that I share his serious concern about sectarian behaviour in Scotland. Indeed, I have already raised the issue with him twice this year at First Minister’s question time. I do not doubt his commitment to tackling it.
As I am sure that Annabel Goldie knows, the Lord Advocate explained that in full detail to the Justice Committee, which is studying the proposed legislation. All members should look at that evidence from the Lord Advocate because he went through, in precise detail, a number of cases in which behaviour that most reasonable people would consider to be an offence had not been covered by the breach of the peace legislation. He gave the example of racist offences. Some courts have decided that breach of the peace must be seen in the context of the effect on others in the situation. Someone could make remarks that are totally unacceptable but which, in the context of their effect on others, are not covered by the breach of the peace legislation. The Lord Advocate spent a great deal of time explaining to the committee why that is a deficiency in the current range of legislation. I hope that Annabel Goldie and the rest of the chamber will look at that evidence.
The First Minister and I know that all of us in the chamber are united in condemning sectarian behaviour wherever it occurs. That is precisely why we must not do a disservice to the public by making bad law just for the sake of making law.
I recommend that Annabel Goldie read the explanation that the Lord Advocate gave the Justice Committee on 22 June 2011. It is a detailed explanation. When I read it, I thought that it made the case for legislative change beyond any peradventure. I am not certain whether Annabel Goldie has had the opportunity to study it in careful detail, but I commend it to her and, indeed, to the rest of the chamber. It is an excellent exposition of the gaps that exist in the breach of the peace legislation and why, over time, the interpretation of breach of the peace has changed and left those gaps. I am sure that when Annabel Goldie reads that explanation, she will understand that, if we are to act decisively, we must ensure that we give the people who are charged with enforcing our law—the police and others—the tools that they require to do the job that we expect them to do.
The First Minister will appreciate the public concern about yesterday’s appeal court decision on Robert Foye’s conviction for a heinous crime that was committed in my constituency. What assurances can the First Minister provide for my constituents and the general public throughout Scotland that a mechanism is built into the justice system to ensure that, if Robert Foye is still regarded as a danger to the public, he will spend the entirety of his sentence behind bars?
I can give two reassurances. First, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice will introduce the required and considered changes in the legal framework for which Lord Hamilton called at the time of the initial judgment in March. They will enable us to close what seems to be a complex but nonetheless distinct loophole in the law.
Cabinet (Meetings)
The next meeting of the Cabinet will discuss matters of importance to the people of Scotland.
This morning, I met the latest recruit to the Liberal Democrats: Councillor Mike Dillon from Paisley who, after a brief flirtation with the Scottish National Party, has returned to the Liberal fold. That is good news. However, it is not such good news that there are an estimated 830,000 victims of crime in Scotland every year. What will the Scottish Government do to support victims?
Let us start with the real issue first: the victims of crime. I am sure that Willie Rennie acknowledges that crime in Scotland is now at a 33-year low. That is the result of many of the policies that this Government has advanced, in particular the policy of putting 1,000 extra police officers on Scotland’s streets and in its communities. That policy was widely supported in the Parliament, although the Liberal Democrats were not among the advocates for it.
I say to the First Minister that Mike Dillon is back with us. [Interruption.]
Order.
The serious issue is that the First Minister has relegated his victims’ rights bill out of this year’s legislative programme. Will he agree to change his mind and introduce it this year?
Victim Support Scotland is working closely with the Government on a range of issues. If Willie Rennie has specific proposals such as the one that he has just mentioned, the Cabinet Secretary for Justice will certainly consider them. That, indeed, is a serious issue.
Crown Estate (Minerals)
Whether it is mineral wealth, the value of a shoreline or the opportunities that are offered by renewables, Scotland’s future economic growth and the strength of our communities rest on having control of our assets. For that reason, the Government has long argued for control of the Crown estates to return democratically to Scotland. The current Scotland Bill provides an excellent opportunity to do that and, given that the Parliament supported the proposal by a large majority, I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland might consider that proposals that were resoundingly endorsed by Scotland’s communities in the election and by a clear parliamentary majority should be included in the Scotland Bill.
The time is right for the archaic legislation governing the Crown estate to be brought into line with the realities of devolution in a modern Scotland, to make it accountable to the Scottish Parliament and people, and to deliver direct benefits to our communities. Will the First Minister continue to make the case to the United Kingdom Government that the Crown estate should be devolved to Parliament as soon as possible?
I met the chief executive of the Crown Estate and the Scottish commissioner last week. On 22 June, we submitted a detailed paper to the UK Government that set out the case for change. The Crown estate in Scotland should be administered in Scotland and accountable to the Scottish Parliament. The revenue should directly benefit Scotland and its communities. In the year to March 2011, the Crown Estate generated a surplus £9.9 million. Those resources were raised in Scotland and the Scottish Government ought to be able to democratically direct them to the benefit of Scotland and its coastal communities.
Nurses
We are maintaining our policy of no compulsory redundancies to increase job and economic security, and we are passing the health Barnett consequentials of £1.106 billion in full to NHS Scotland.
There is no doubt that nurses’ morale is plummeting. They are desperately worried about falling care standards and they are uncertain about the future. As the SNP and the First Minister are fond of reminding us, they promised to protect all the health budget, not just health boards or part of the budget, and yet there has been a real-terms reduction of £320 million of revenue alone. That is a fact.
More people are working in the health service in Scotland now than there were in 2007.
University Mergers
The Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council is the body responsible and it can make proposals, but ultimately it is for the universities themselves to decide.
On Tuesday, Lord Sutherland described the consultation process regarding the possible merger between the University of Abertay Dundee and the University of Dundee as a “merger by fax”. Does the First Minister believe that it is acceptable for those universities to have just six weeks to respond to the Scottish funding council’s request that a possible merger be considered?
The Scottish funding council makes proposals, but just as there will be no closure of any college or university in Scotland, there will be no forced merger of any institution either, which contrasts with the situation elsewhere. The Scottish funding council is entitled to make proposals and it was entitled to do so in the case in question because—as Liz Smith should be well aware—there were concerns about governance issues that involved the suspension and then retiral of the then principal of the University of Abertay. There were also concerns about the costs that such matters may well have to the public purse—the Scottish funding council, of course, supplies the bulk of the funds in that regard.
Lord Sutherland also said that he could not imagine a worse way of undertaking a merger. Does the First Minister agree with him that the message of the experience of the University of Abertay Dundee and the University of Dundee will send a chill down the spines of colleges and universities across Scotland?
Perhaps the member should catch up with the consequences of the agreed merger between the three Glasgow colleges. I do not know whether he has seen the evidence this week and the strong endorsement of the impact of that merger. I note that there was a saving of £4 million in financial efficiencies from a measure that has established a great new college in the city of Glasgow. Incidentally, there were 69 mergers of colleges in the period of the previous Labour Government in England. Let us not have the idea that a merger between institutions is anything new, or other than something that could benefit the institutions themselves.
In light of the First Minister’s answer to Liz Smith that there will be no forced mergers between institutions, will he confirm that the merger talks between the University of Dundee and the University of Abertay Dundee will come to a halt at the end of October as the Scottish funding council set out in its letter?
It is for the universities to respond to the Scottish funding council’s proposals—and I am sure that they will. I will give the member a serious answer, given that last week she was able to ask a serious question, unlike her party leader, who was talking about closures.
You just can’t help yourself, can you?
I think that most people who were here last week would say that what I just said was a reasonable estimation of the position.
On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Have you had time to reflect on the point of order that I raised with you two weeks ago in respect of the length of time that it takes the First Minister to answer questions? Can you update Parliament on your reflections?
I say to the member and to the chamber that every member, with the exception of one, who wanted a supplementary question this week got one. I also ensured that question time ran on for just a bit extra because of the importance of the debate about the university sector. I am satisfied that all members are being fairly represented in the chamber, but I will continue to reflect on what the member says.