Chamber and committees

As we continue to navigate our way through the Covid-19 pandemic, the blunt truth is that most developed economies are grappling with labour shortages. The pandemic and associated public health responses have had a profound impact on workforces and working practices. That is not unique to Scotland or the UK; business leaders and policy makers around the world are assessing which levers to pull to remedy the situation as best they can.

Those in the sectors that are worst affected by labour shortages recognise that the problems that they are experiencing have multiple causes. The Road Haulage Association, for example, told the Scottish Affairs Committee in November last year that

“The driver shortage that we face is nothing new. It existed before Brexit.”

It added that

“there is not one single lever that could have been pulled to sort this.”

Predictably, the SNP-Green Government is focusing its energy on blaming Brexit and the UK Government’s migration policies for Scotland’s reduced workforce availability. As usual, it is about constitutional grievance. However, the pandemic has brought into sharp relief pre-existing tensions and weaknesses that prevent economies from reaching optimum performance. As my colleague Liz Smith identified earlier, there are serious structural issues with the Scottish economy that long predate the pandemic and Brexit.

The message that we repeatedly hear from the business community is that Scotland is being hampered by a significant and persistent skills gap, which goes back years. We know from the employer skills survey that, between 2015 and 2017, the number of businesses in Scotland that reported skills gaps increased, while there was a decline at UK level.

More recently, the SNP failed to meet its commitment to deliver 30,000 new apprenticeships by 2020, impacting the pipeline of talent that Scotland needs as its ageing population becomes economically inactive. That is not to mention the dramatic fall in apprenticeship starts in the early months of the pandemic, which the CIPD says fell more sharply in Scotland than England.

I have spent the past 30 years of my career matching people and skills with organisational demand. Our top priority should be full employment, which requires the creation of good, sustainable jobs across all regions of the country.

We need to give people the opportunity to reskill and upskill, which must be demand led. Take, for example, Scotland’s digital sector, which creates around 13,000 new roles annually. Only around 5,000 new recruits are being produced each year through universities and apprenticeships, which is a massive shortfall. As the Confederation of British Industry argued after last month’s budget announcements, we need “greater ambition” from the Scottish Government on upskilling and retraining. It needs to start delivering.

The world order changed profoundly as a result of the pandemic. The resilience that has been demonstrated by businesses and workers over the past two years has been extraordinary. As we seek to recover from the pandemic, we must focus on ways to help as many people as possible. We need action—Scotland’s economic growth and productivity depend on it.

Does the member agree that there is an issue with HGV drivers not just in Scotland and the UK, but across Europe as a whole?

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention?

Three things that the First Minister said earlier resonated: publishing evidence, the application of judgment and—[Inaudible.] Of the £168 million of business support that the Scottish Government announced on 29 December, how much has been allocated to north-east businesses? When will the money get to businesses that really need it in order to survive?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the review of the victim notification scheme. (S6O-00558)

Victim Support Scotland has highlighted, shockingly, multiple suicide attempts by victims as a result of the letter that notifies them that the perpetrator in their case is to be released. The organisation believes that the scheme is not fit for purpose and that the need for a review has never been greater.

The Scottish Government has dithered and delayed, but the Scottish Conservatives have committed to reform the victim notification scheme, as part of our victims law. Does the cabinet secretary support those proposals?

I, too, am proud to be a member of the Parliament. It is a diverse Parliament, 45 per cent of the members of which are women, and we are working to make it more inclusive. I do not want to be dictated to, and I also want my lectern to be up.

This debate is set against the background of the public health constraints that have been necessitated by the outbreak of Covid-19 and how the Scottish Parliament has adapted its procedures and practices to meet those challenges. I thank parliamentary staff for the support that they have provided to all MSPs during the pandemic, which has allowed this legislature to operate safely at a time of crisis and deep uncertainty.

More than two decades after the Scottish Parliament was created, today’s debate is an opportunity to look at how it operates not just during Covid-19 but more generally. It is, after all, a nascent Parliament but one that is steeped in history and one of which expectations are very high.

There is a wide spectrum of parliamentary experience in the chamber. For my part, I am contributing as a new MSP, with what I hope is a fresh pair of eyes.

The Parliament was created 22 years ago to address a perceived democratic deficit in Scottish politics. I, too, was interested in the reply from Maggie Chapman on culture. A different kind of deficit exists now. As my colleagues have pointed out, rather than having spontaneous debate, too often the process is scripted, with the First Minister reading out prepared answers to planted questions from Scottish National Party back benchers, and responses are often drawn out to fill the time.

Just a few weeks ago, when the First Minister read out the wrong pre-scripted answer twice in two weeks, the Presiding Officer said that the content of MSPs’ contributions is not a matter for her. MSPs are often pulled up by the Presiding Officers on the relevance of their contributions to parliamentary debates. It should therefore follow that a representative of the Scottish Government who fails to answer a question that has been posed to them should also be reproached.

As we have been reminded this week, the threat of Covid-19 still looms large. It is more important than ever that MSPs can scrutinise the decision making and actions of the Scottish Government. We have far too frequently seen the First Minister announce new restrictions from a podium during a press conference, not in Parliament. In June this year, the Scottish Government’s decision to impose a travel ban between Scotland and Manchester had a direct bearing on the north-east of Scotland when EasyJet decided that it was no longer commercially feasible to operate a new route between Aberdeen and Manchester. The travel ban was announced by the First Minister on a Friday—a non-sitting day—during a press conference and with no opportunity for scrutiny by MSPs. That was a contemptuous move.

The Scottish Government’s evasiveness in written answers to parliamentary questions is also worrying, as is the time that it takes to respond to those questions. Those issues were highlighted in the previous SPPA Committee’s legacy report. On 20 September, I lodged a written question about the maintenance of hospital estates. That question was especially important because of what has been happening at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital in Glasgow. I did not receive a response until 15 November, almost two months later. The standing orders require that written questions receive a response within 10 working days. That response was not good enough. Parliament is too often sidelined by this SNP-Green Government. That should not be allowed to happen.

When the Scottish Government does engage with the parliamentary process, we often find ourselves debating matters outside the Parliament’s devolved remit, as part of a grievance-stoking exercise. That is not the accountability that the public deserves or expects.

My final comment relates to parliamentary privilege. It is well-known that MSPs do not have the same parliamentary privileges as our Westminster counterparts. In order to facilitate free speech and effective scrutiny, I would encourage the SPPA Committee to reflect deeply on whether it is possible to extend and strengthen parliamentary privilege for MSPs.

Will the member take an intervention?

I am in my last minute. You could have asked earlier.

Thank you for taking my intervention. Bearing it in mind that the minister is on first-name terms with an Opposition colleague, whose party is in coalition with the minister’s party, is it right that the Green Party should have the same allowances for questions and challenges in debates, now that they are all one together?