Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body whether it will consult MSP staff trade unions before deciding on uprating the staff cost provision in the 2026-27 financial year. (S6O-05223)

[Made a request to intervene.]

[Made a request to intervene.]

In the spirit of cross-party working, I think that there is cross-party consensus that the policy has generally been successful in Glasgow, but there have been a couple of instances in which it has had unintended consequences, most notably in relation to Govanhill baths and Flemington house in Springburn, where dozens of small businesses were evicted because the owner had to pursue a temporary relief for 12 months. There are cases in which it could be improved. Would it be possible to lodge a light-touch amendment to the bill to signal where best practice should be adopted by local authorities? That would not be militating against their devolved rights but signalling where improvements could be made at national level to preserve listed buildings.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that the fragmentation of control between the Scottish Government and the regional transport partnership militates against efficiency, when compared to other jurisdictions that have delivered metro rail very efficiently, such as Madrid? For example, the advanced manufacturing innovation district Scotland—AMIDS—south project in Paisley cannot consider very light rail in order to get a quick win with a shuttle train between the airport terminal and Paisley Gilmour Street because of the lack of span of control between rail and road, and because road projects always take priority by default.

I welcome yesterday’s meeting with the minister; it was very productive. However, I will press him on the urgency of the timescale. We have 12 days until people are cut off, so we need urgent action. Will the minister confirm that the Government will write to the FCA to press the need for the section 166 order to be served before policies expire at the end of the month? Will he also give a timescale on convening that working group with the credit union coalition so that we can work collaboratively to ensure that people are not left particularly vulnerable at this time of year?

It was unfortunate that the cabinet secretary ran out of time to refer to my speech. Will Martin Whitfield invite her to respond to my letter of 4 September?

I rise to raise in particular issues of spatial planning in schools. Glasgow is facing some significant challenges in that area. After many years of population decline, the city’s population has increased by around 7 per cent in the past decade, and the increase in school rolls is projected to continue. Glasgow’s secondary pupil school roll is forecast to grow by 18 per cent over the next decade, and the primary school pupil roll is predicted to grow by 4 per cent in the next two years.

The issue has been particularly acute in neighbourhoods in which there has been a high level of new-build development, such as Robroyston in the north of the city. I have recently undertaken a significant amount of work in that community, with the community council and parents. A statistically significant number of parents and people who are planning to have children have told me that they are simply unable to access either secondary or primary school provision in the area.

The nearest non-denominational secondary school is Smithycroft, but Robroyston is right on the limit of that school’s catchment area and children have to walk for an hour to get there, including through an unlit graveyard. That is quite an unsafe route. It is not at all well provisioned. That school is reaching capacity. The city’s proposed strategy for the expansion of school capacity is not to build a new school, which is probably fair enough given the logistical aspects of running a school—the duplication of overheads in resourcing, and so on—but simply to construct modular accommodation. That has already happened in a number of schools across the city in recent years, and it is simply not optimal. Building glorified portakabins to accommodate expanding school rolls at secondary level is simply not acceptable.

I am keen to hear the cabinet secretary’s views on how Glasgow City Council in particular is managing school expansion. There are 30 secondary schools in Glasgow, 29 of which are operated under public-private partnership model arrangements that will come to a conclusion in 2030. However, even under the PPP scheme, there has been proper expansion, such as the Bellarmine extension to St Paul’s on the south side, which opened in 2023.

I would like the cabinet secretary to engage more directly with Glasgow City Council to understand its estates management programme and to challenge the conclusion that modular buildings are the solution. The situation is upsetting to parents and it is not good for the city’s spatial planning in areas such as Robroyston, which are at the limits of existing catchment areas. Parents feel that their children are put under a lot of pressure to travel long distances to access schooling, including in inclement weather, and some are unable to access schools at all. The area is on the boundary with East Dunbartonshire. There was previously an arrangement with East Dunbartonshire Council—and, before that, Strathclyde Regional Council—whereby placing requests were much easier to facilitate. However, that has been less the case in recent years, as the planned capacity of the schools has been reduced.

There are a number of issues pertaining to the north of Glasgow, particularly in relation to secondary school capacity, but also for the primary estate. Modular buildings are being used at Wallacewell primary school to sustain capacity, and with Smithycroft now reaching capacity, the planned solution is to build modular buildings there. I really do not think that that is acceptable.

I have examined the modelling for school capacity planning in Glasgow. Although it looks good on the surface, the projections do not seem to tally with the lived experience of people in the communities. I am keen for the cabinet secretary to engage with Glasgow City Council on the issue and to explore options with East Dunbartonshire Council. With the rebuild proposal for Lenzie academy, could there be options to share capacity with new-build estates in the north of the city?

I have written to the cabinet secretary about that. I am still awaiting a formal response from her, but I am keen for her to meet me and representatives of the community to discuss the matter in more detail and consider how, with Glasgow’s new director of education, when they are appointed, we can plan ahead in a more robust and resilient way. Although the modelling looks good, it does not tally with the lived experience of people in Robroyston.

It is not clear how proactive ExxonMobil has been in marketing the asset to the international market. Will the Deputy First Minister consider more proactive measures to secure international investment in the asset as well as competitive measures such as joining Shell, which operates the neighbouring plant, to consider a private-wire power purchase agreement, which could significantly reduce the energy costs of one of Scotland’s most intensive electricity consumers?

On Saturday morning, I spoke to a nurse who had just finished her night shift at Glasgow royal infirmary’s A and E department. She said that the corridors in that department are already filling up with elderly patients who are stuck on trolleys and are unable to be admitted to wards, and that she and her colleagues are terrified that the situation is only going to get worse as the winter deepens, given that it is only mid-November. From conversations that she has had with colleagues from other hospitals, she knows that corridor care is the norm in many hospitals across Scotland. Will the cabinet secretary give a personal guarantee to my constituent and her colleagues at Glasgow royal infirmary that this winter preparedness plan will finally end the disgrace of corridor care in Scottish hospitals?