Chamber and committees

I thank Jack Middleton for bringing the debate to the chamber. Its subject is of widespread concern, and will impact significantly on communities across the north of Scotland and in my North East Scotland region.

The ongoing situation at STV has been a farce that has been rolling on for months, causing untold stress to the staff at the station as uncertainty over jobs has continued. The worry about what that means for communities in the north of the country rolls on, too.

It is hard to think of a decision in recent times that has been more universally opposed. This Parliament, all parties, the National Union of Journalists, STV staff, the viewing public and many more have stood in opposition to the changes because we all know that quality local journalism matters. Indeed, the decline of quality local journalism that is embedded close to people is a tragedy. As many local newspapers face increasing issues with sustainability, it has become more, rather than less, important for the biggest companies and corporations to ensure that their journalism is rooted in communities. Such locally rooted journalism is, to be frank, the only route to sustainability for journalism, because it is unique and irreplaceable.

In my home city of Dundee, so rich in its history of journalism and its traditions that carry through to the excellent local and regional press that we still proudly host today, we will see the loss of our dedicated news from a national broadcaster in STV, and the opportunities that that creates.

Although it is a commercial decision from STV, backed by the regulator to this point, it is also the latest example of what is becoming an ever-growing list of services being centralised away from communities in Scotland. Those in the north-east and further afield have, over the years, seen the same situation before. On issues such as our core public services and where infrastructure spending is prioritised, it speaks to a worrying continuation of that recent story of devolution: that, while more powers are situated in Scotland, more power is taken out and too often centralised in the central belt instead.

The absence of regional journalism will only hasten that process, and whatever we might think, collectively, about the barrier and where the balance should sit, local people should have that accountability and the opportunity to make their case about where power is situated. We are talking about not merely the loss of a news bulletin in the evening news, but something that is deeper. It is about the identity of the communities that I represent: their ability to connect with what is going on in their areas, to tell their stories and express themselves and to understand what is happening where they are.

More broadly, I believe—Jack Middleton has touched on some of this—that the decision is an act of surrender to what is a wildfire of commoditised fear that is weaponised by tech oligarchs to purposely undermine real freedom in pursuit of power and profit. The locally trained ethical journalist in Aberdeen, Angus or Dundee will, in reality, be replaced not by a journalist in Glasgow but by an artificial intelligence server in orbit. That is the trend that we are seeing, and the direction that these processes are taking.

If the decision goes ahead, it seems a long way back to real local representation in the news. I therefore stand in solidarity with the journalists in Aberdeen and further afield. They are leading the news in our region, and I urge Ofcom and STV to think again and keep giving the communities in the north of Scotland the service that we need and deserve.

18:39

Yes—my apologies, Presiding Officer.

I thank Maggie Chapman for securing the debate, which is very timely for my constituents in Dundee. This week has been yet another shocking one for people who are employed at the University of Dundee, as I was for some 15 years prior to my election to Parliament in 2021. A significant number of people have reached out to me, which reflects the huge anger among the staff population and their bewilderment about a situation that they have been caught up in for far too long.

Significant questions need to be asked about the situation at the University of Dundee and the issues that my constituents are raising. Frankly, I am astounded that the Cabinet Secretary for Education, Culture and Gaelic did not make a visit to Dundee university the first appointment in her diary when she was appointed on 20 May 2026. The Government knew that a raft of cuts was on the way, in one form or another, or was to be proposed. That was written about in the press, and the issue was a matter of continued dialogue with the Scottish Funding Council. Therefore, on one level, I find the Government’s reaction somewhat bewildering.

I share some of the previous speaker’s concerns about the use in the Dundee situation of too narrow a definition of what a university is. The fact that the current process is cutting the university to the absolute core and removing some of the broader missions of a university represents a very big challenge not only for the community, but for the staff who are directly impacted. We must ask why that is happening.

Maggie Chapman said that we are not really talking about a crisis of money. I fundamentally disagree with her on that—we are talking about a crisis of money at the University of Dundee. That is why people are about to lose their jobs. The university claims that, unless it acts now—immediately—to make the savings that it has set out, the institution will be bankrupt by 2028. I have spoken on many occasions to the trade unions at the university, which are rightly querying the scale of the EBITDA—earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation—target, which is an outlier in the sector. The university management must provide clear justification for the position that they are taking on that, because that is one of the key factors in relation to the putting in place of the cuts.

The job losses that we are looking at now are significantly larger than those that had previously been described. Given that the previous target was described by the First Minister as “entirely unacceptable”, the Government needs to tell us why it thinks that the job losses that are now proposed are acceptable.

I recognise that the university is an independent institution, which means that it has its own legal status. Although the Scottish Funding Council has looked at the documentation that the university has presented and seems to have approved it, in recent days we have heard some words from the Government that suggest that it thinks that that is open to question. I ask the minister, in his summing up, to reflect on the university’s relationship with the Scottish Funding Council in that regard and to set out what can be done to explore those issues further.

We must not lose sight of the broader causes of the current situation. It is true that the university’s management were absolutely appalling. In the previous session of Parliament, MSPs saw with their own eyes how dreadful they were when members of the previous senior management team appeared before committees. However, there are questions to ask about the broad financial issues that are at play here. I have been raising the crisis in the university sector in the Parliament for years—I was doing that well before the crisis at the University of Dundee, the institution that is close to my heart.

The issue is one of systemic underfunding of the university sector. The primary driver of the current crisis, which goes beyond Dundee university, is that in Scotland, since 2014-15, funding per student has fallen by 39 per cent in real terms. The Scottish Funding Council research excellence grant has fallen by 43 per cent. That has had consequences. There has been a comparative lack of improvement in relation to the rest of the UK in the research excellence framework. That represented clear evidence of a chilling in the Scottish research sector. It was one of the early signs—

I will, Presiding Officer.

I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to the debate. It is right that we get some answers from the minister on what steps will be taken next. I look forward to hearing the rest of the contributions.

16:34

I apologise for the fact that I am having to take part in the debate online. I thank Maggie Chapman for securing the debate—

I welcome the hard work that Our Union Street is doing to re-energise Union Street and the centre of Aberdeen. The project is working along with partners to bring together a shared vision of the future of the city centre.

Can the minister say a little more today about how the Scottish Government will assist with the funding of that regeneration and the delivery of the shared vision that the partners are developing?

I thank the member for giving way—she is giving a very fine speech and tribute to Jo Cox.

Has she been struck, in recent days, by what has been revealed by the BBC about the firebomb attacks that were made on the UK Prime Minister by another state? The purpose of those attacks was to divide people in Britain, and exploit the existing divisions, including through social media accounts online. That is a prime example of how the weakness in our political discourse can result in direct harm to our country.

If the cabinet secretary wants to tell me that vision, I will gladly hear it right now.

It strikes me that that is precisely what Scottish Labour’s amendment describes. We must understand the shape of those public bodies, decide where there is duplication and stop having some of them. Given that the committee that the member sat on said that that was a good idea, will she vote for our amendment?

I find deeply disappointing the idea that the Government does not have any position on a recruitment freeze in NHS Tayside for critical posts involved in care. The cabinet secretary should know that there are significant delays—for instance, in gynaecological care and women’s health—across NHS Tayside, which is just one example of many shortfalls. What will the Government do to ensure that health boards are not put in the position of having widespread recruitment freezes that impact on patient care?

I will say two things in response to that. First, I am sure that the cabinet secretary is a keen advocate for that, but I would believe him a bit more if we had not gone for 20 years without the Scottish National Party substantially reforming the public sector. There have been some reforms, but they clearly have not met the trends or achieved the scale of transformation that is required—I will come back to that.

Secondly, I am afraid that if we do not have an idea of what is going on, that will result in a management consultancy strategy that is not very likely to gain public buy-in. All we had from the cabinet secretary were some adjectives for what reform could look like, instead of a description of the shape of services that we absolutely require.

I will give the example of health service reform. The recent division of boards into two regions—east and west—has been put in place without any real explanation. It came as a huge surprise to leaders in our national health service and it was imposed without any form of consultation with the trade unions. It did not meet fair work principles from the outset—it is a good example of how not to do reform. Whether there was a case to do it is not the question; the process that the cabinet secretary set out in the strategy and in his speech was not followed, and on that basis, we are concerned about it.

The cabinet secretary knows that I fundamentally believe in the empowerment of citizens. I have told him that my vision of a future Scottish state is very much one in which citizens are empowered, where they own and have control of their data and understand what is happening. However, that requires a broader vision of technological implementation, which I find lacking in the strategy.

Willie Rennie was right to talk about prioritisation. If we do not understand what success would look like, it is really difficult for Parliament and the public to see whether any of this is working. We need the Government to tell us something specific—what a service will look like or that a service will cease to exist—so that it can hang its hat on that and we can understand whether it is making progress, instead of its just talking about the fiscal savings. I think that that is at the heart of this.

Change is, of course, not cost free. When the United Kingdom Labour Government was elected in 2024, I met the then Cabinet Secretary for Finance and said that that moment, with the significant increase in public investment, was a unique opportunity for rapid change. She looked at me as if I had walked out of a spaceship instead of the lift to the ministerial corridor because the very idea was a completely alien concept to the SNP. That is because the SNP was elected in 2007 on the basis of no reform, and it has pursued that for 20 years.

We could say much more about this agenda. It is a huge challenge. I absolutely agree with the cabinet secretary about the preventative aspect. Delayed discharge has cost this country billions of pounds because, under this Government, there was no reform of health and social care when it was clearly needed, on the basis of demographic trends.

I will close by talking about the two practical things that we have asked for in our amendment. The first is

“a timetable for the reduction in … public bodies”.

After five years, I still trip over new ones every week, and I have no idea what they actually do.

Secondly, we are looking for an understanding of the displacement effect of the withdrawal of public capacity in our third sector. It is vital that the Government explains that. Those are practical things that the Government could be doing right now to set the framework on better footing. I look forward to the other contributions in the debate.

I move amendment S7M-00309.3, to insert at end:

“that the Scottish Government’s approach to public service reform should align with the principles of Community Wealth Building, Fair Work and the European Charter for Local Self-Government and the need to encourage economic growth, and calls on the Scottish Government to produce a detailed timetable for the reduction in the number of public bodies as part of a drive to reduce broader waste and to produce a holistic assessment of the impact of the public sector reform programme on Scotland's vital third sector.”

15:33