Chamber and committees

I am happy to engage with the Homeless Project to see whether there is more that we, as a Government, can do to help it find a building. The work that it does is extremely important. We all wish that it was not necessary, but I pay tribute to the project for its work.

Over and above that, the Scottish Government will continue to do all that it can to help people with the cost of living, which is heaping misery upon people who, in many cases, were already living in poverty. I have already referred to the increase in benefits, the doubling of the Scottish child payment and support for the welfare fund. All those policies will continue. Glasgow City Council, working with its partners, has a very good record in delivering affordable housing. We will see what happens in a couple of weeks, but I know that the current administration has plans to build on that progress.

It is incumbent on all of us with any influence and power to do everything that we can to help people suffering the cost of living crisis. However, for us to be able to do as much as we would want to would necessitate more power over those crucial issues lying in the hands of this Parliament and not in the hands of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak at Westminster.

We are seeing improvements in attainment in Scotland’s schools, although all of us understand the impact of Covid over the past couple of years. That has made it all the more important that we focus on initiatives to improve attainment.

I will write to Liz Smith, or I will ask the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills to do so, with more details on the work around school libraries. However, in my first answer, I talked about the investment that we are making through the school library improvement fund. That demonstrates the Government’s commitment to supporting libraries in schools and local community libraries as well.

The decisions that we have taken on attainment funding are in recognition of the fact that there is deprivation in all parts of the country. Those changes to the allocation of the attainment fund were fully supported by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, including the member’s colleagues on it.

As I said in my earlier answers, we support school libraries through the school library improvement fund, and we will continue to do so.

There are some really serious issues in there and I hope that, if not during this meeting then after it, Anas Sarwar will clarify at least two of his points. First, there is a serious constitutional question. He has twice referred to the Rangers prosecution and the cost of settling that. If he thinks that that is something that I could have influenced, is he saying that ministers should have been involved in or should have influenced independent prosecution decisions, or intervened in any way in that case? If he is going to suggest, as he has, that that money was wasted by the SNP, he really must answer that fundamental question. Does he think that I should have interfered in the prosecution decisions of the Crown Office?

The second point goes back to the £146 million in relation to hospitals. Is Anas Sarwar saying that £80 million should not have been spent on essential preparation work? That is the logical conclusion of what he is saying.

The spin and soundbites might sound good when Anas Sarwar is rehearsing these questions, but he should pay a bit more attention to the detail.

Libraries deliver a range of benefits. They provide vital access to learning materials and resources, helping to improve literacy and tackle the attainment gap.

Although local libraries are the responsibility of local government, the Scottish Government is committed to supporting libraries directly. As part of our programme for government, we launched a £1.25 million public library Covid relief fund to support 30 projects across Scotland to remain open and tackle the attainment gap. That is over and above the money invested since 2017 through the school library improvement fund and the continued annual public library improvement fund, which supports new projects in libraries. As part of the £1 billion Scottish attainment challenge, the framework for recovery and accelerating progress encourages collaboration across local authority services, including education and local libraries.

As a matter of good faith, I will undertake to explore any suggestion that is made in the chamber. We all want to do everything that we can to help. The member will understand that to legislate, particularly on a complex matter such as this, takes time. That was recognised by her colleague Mark Griffin in the debate before Christmas, when he said

“We certainly do not expect legislation to come into force in year 2 of this parliamentary session, but we would look for details of the framework for the rules”.—[Official Report, 21 December 2021; c 45.]

We will continue to look at how we can, if possible, accelerate progress on the bill, but in the meantime take further action. We have already strengthened tenants’ rights in recent years, and it is not the case that we are not providing help in the meantime. We have the £10 million tenant grant fund, which is focused on helping private and social tenants who are struggling financially; we are providing £86 million in housing support this year; and we provided £39 million of additional funding to avoid evictions as a result of the pandemic. We will continue to make support available but we will also continue to look closely at any suggestions for further action that might be made.

That decision is utterly abhorrent—morally and ethically. It is a total abdication of the UK’s moral and international responsibilities to asylum seekers and refugees, and will make it more challenging and prolonged for people to seek safety from war and persecution. In that decision, the UK Government is ignoring the welfare of extremely vulnerable people.

For all those reasons, that policy has, rightly, been condemned by many. Given that we have heard Theresa May—who as Home Secretary sent “go home” vans around Glasgow—describe that policy in the House of Commons as morally, ethically and practically wrong, all of us have to realise how far the UK Government is going from any moral course on this issue.

I do not support road tolls, but I do support local councils being empowered to consider the tough issues that they face, to consult the public and to take sensible decisions—[Interruption.]

I do not have that figure to hand, but I am happy to look at that. I suspect that I would not agree entirely with the way that Anas Sarwar is characterising it, but I am more than happy to look at the detail of his question and write to him with the information in due course.

We are currently implementing the commitments in the long Covid approach paper, which is all about improving care and support for people in Scotland with long Covid. Long Covid clinics are one model that health boards can consider, but we have always recognised—rightly, I believe—that no single approach will fit all areas and circumstances, so health boards must look at a range of approaches.

As far as the issue of a debate on long Covid is concerned, we have made it clear and given a commitment that we will have such a debate in the next few weeks. At that time, we will provide a full update on progress. The intention is that we will provide Parliament with a detailed update on the outcome of the planning process that is currently being undertaken with national health service boards to determine the first allocations of the long Covid support fund, which is what MSPs have called for.