Chamber and committees

If Neil Gray really thinks that his time is better spent in Japan than in Scotland during an NHS crisis, he should not be the health secretary. What has the health secretary done to give John Swinney any confidence that he can bring down cancer waiting times?

One in three cancer patients in Scotland do not begin to receive treatment within the Government’s target time. I will repeat that for the First Minister’s benefit: one in three cancer patients are not receiving treatment when they need it. In one health board, NHS Borders, fewer than half begin treatment within the 62-day target, and in NHS Grampian it is almost as bad.

Behind those new and bleak statistics are real people. For them and their families, the Scottish National Party’s culture of failure can be the difference between life and death.

Does John Swinney accept that that is unacceptable? What will he do to meet cancer treatment time targets?

John Swinney seems to be patting himself on the back, which will be absolutely no consolation to all the people who are waiting for treatment. Since John Swinney became First Minister, more than 3,000 cancer patients have been waiting longer for treatment than his Government promised. Every passing day puts more lives at risk, but the Government is complacent. There is no sense of urgency.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, who is not in the Parliament today, was not even in Scotland to respond to the latest shocking figures; he was on his second trip to Japan. I have no idea why he is not here today; it is absolutely ridiculous. The SNP press release said that his visit to Japan was to talk up Scotland’s health technology sector. I am all for promoting Scottish technical innovation, but this analogue SNP Government cannot even deliver a basic app for Scottish NHS patients. Can John Swinney tell worried cancer patients and their families how they will be helped by a health secretary who is collecting more air miles?

It is perhaps unsurprising that Neil Gray is out of the country, talking tech, because the previous SNP health secretary quit because of his overseas tech difficulties. Where is Neil Gray’s focus? There is a cancer care crisis, but he took taxpayer-funded limos to the pub and the football, and then he decided to go to Japan. It says everything that John Swinney is happy to admit that he sent him there.

This has been more than a couple of bad calls. It is a fundamental issue of his focus and professional judgment. [Interruption.]

Presiding Officer, I echo the First Minister’s sentiments and thank you for your service.

The First Minister seems content that the target is being met in one in 14 health boards—that is simply not good enough. The SNP Government’s flagship national health service recovery plan 2021-2026 is failing patients, just as we warned that it would. Promises to reduce cancer treatment times keep being broken, yet John Swinney will never criticise Humza Yousaf’s and Nicola Sturgeon’s plan.

At least his public health minister has come clean about the price of SNP failure. When asked whether lives are being lost because of late cancer diagnosis, she said:

“Yes, they may well be.”

She said that in the same week that it was reported that the SNP is sitting on a £550 million underspend from last year. That is more than half a billion pounds unspent. Will John Swinney increase cancer spending and use some of that unspent money to launch an emergency cancer fund?

If John Swinney really has listened to teachers, he seems to have gone on to completely ignore what they said.

What does the guidance say should happen if a pupil commits an act of violence? It tells teachers to give violent pupils a laminated paper with a set of bullet points that tell them to think about their behaviour. It also suggests that a way to tackle unsafe behaviour is to have a

“conversation to jointly problem solve with the child”.

It also says that disruptive pupils should be allowed to leave class two minutes early, which to me sounds like a reward rather than a punishment.

The new guidance ends with 94 questions that teachers are supposed to ask themselves—94 questions; as if they have the time. So, on behalf of Scotland’s teachers, I have just one question for John Swinney: is this for real?

That was absolutely desperate. As the First Minister knows fine well, there are different types of exclusion, rather than just putting children on to the streets, as he suggests. He virtually stopped exclusions, which is causing discipline to collapse. He turned teachers into social workers. He sent a dangerous message to disruptive pupils that they can get away with it. He fundamentally changed the classroom culture, and that is now harming children and their education.

People in the real world know how to sort out the problem. We need a tougher approach, not laminated cards and inclusive chats. If pupils are violent or serially disruptive, we should exclude them. Will John Swinney end the barrage of guidance and—please—empower teachers to take a stricter approach?

Violent and disruptive behaviour in schools is getting worse. A small minority of pupils prevent the majority from learning in peace and in safety. Some teachers feel unsafe and many feel unsupported. The Scottish National Party’s naive and weak approach fails absolutely everyone.

In response to that situation, the Scottish Government has just published new guidance on behaviour in schools. That document is exactly what we might expect from this ineffective Government: 49 pages of tedious, hand-wringing nonsense—it is complicated and confusing.

When John Swinney was education secretary, teachers said that he issued too much guidance, which made their jobs even harder, so why is he now repeating the same mistake?

I am very confident of my interpretation of this document and I will let the teachers and pupils of Scotland decide what is in it.

My party has long argued that a stricter approach is necessary to restore discipline in schools. We believe in exclusions for violence because they protect staff and pupils and because they work. The new SNP guidance says that exclusions should be considered only “as a last resort” and that, when they are considered, teachers still need to follow the guidance that was introduced by none other than John Swinney in 2017. That guidance has a 66-item checklist for teachers to consider while they are going through an exclusion process.

Where does the SNP actually stand on this? Has it U-turned? Does it now support exclusions to tackle bad behaviour or does the SNP not know where it stands?

I will try to stop laughing for a minute.

John Swinney does not even seem to accept that the economic performance gap exists. It is peak SNP denial. The SFC is saying it—it is in its report, which the First Minister should try to read.

The SNP has failed to keep up with the rest of the UK. It has made the situation even worse by wasting billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on a national care service that does not treat patients, the endless CalMac ferry scandal, a £1 billion prison with bird and bat boxes and an annual benefits bill that will soon top £9 billion.

The SNP is costing Scotland £1 billion a year in lost growth and countless billions of pounds through its sheer incompetence. Is that not exactly why John Swinney cannot bring down bills or improve public services? He is throwing all the money away.