Chamber and committees

As I said in my statement, we will start discussions with local authorities within our first 100 days to ensure that we are taking the necessary steps and providing the wherewithal for councils to do that. Once we have had those discussions, we will be able to set out a firmer timescale for when the charges will be removed. I hope that that will happen soon, in the early stages of this parliamentary session, because, for a variety of reasons, it will be good to ensure that young people can take advantage of music education, for example, without the barrier of cost, which I know has held some back in recent years.

No. We will take forward that commitment as planned. That will require lots of planning and discussions, but much of that is already under way. The timescale aligns with the end of the current contract, of course, which is why it is important to get that work under way within the first 100 days. The Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport will set out updates in due course—indeed, I imagine that he will set out regular updates to Parliament on the progress of that work.

I do not underestimate the challenges that are involved, but I hope that, across the parties, we can celebrate bringing our railways back into public ownership as a really good move and take the opportunity to accelerate the decarbonisation of our railway system as well. We will ensure that Parliament is kept fully updated as that work progresses.

I am afraid that Annie Wells would—if she had listened—have heard an answer to the question.

Yes—I am prepared to discuss that matter. I do not know all the detail of what the Scottish Conservatives are proposing. It is important that we, as a Government, understand the detail of any proposal before we commit to taking it forward. I hope that the Scottish Conservatives can find it within themselves to embrace the areas in which we might find common ground. There is willingness—there is an open door—to discuss that. [Interruption.] If Annie Wells would stop mouthing things at me from a sedentary position, we could, perhaps, find some genuinely common ground. I cannot be more positive or fairer than that. It is up to the Scottish Conservatives to choose whether to respond in an equally positive way.

I thank Neil Gray for his question. I think that this is the first opportunity that I have had in the chamber to welcome him formally to the Scottish Parliament. I have no doubt that he will be a really valuable addition to our discussions and debates.

The report of the Social Justice and Fairness Commission, which was an SNP and not a Scottish Government initiative, was published yesterday and contains some fantastic ideas, suggestions and policy initiatives that I hope will find their way into not just the policy programme of this Government—many of them have already done that—but the policy programmes of other parties as well.

At the heart of our efforts to tackle and, in time, eradicate child poverty, which should be our objective, is the doubling of the Scottish child payment. Tens of thousands of children—I do not have the precise figure in front of me—are already benefiting from that and many more will benefit as we extend the reach of the payment next year and then double its value as soon as possible.

That is a really concrete, tangible example of what we can do when we have powers to act here, at Holyrood. Unfortunately, we have a UK Government that is still saying that it will take away the universal credit uplift and potentially make changes that will put more children into poverty. That is the argument for having complete powers over social security here, in the Scottish Parliament, so that we can tackle such problems in a genuinely joined-up and holistic manner.

I welcome Martin Whitfield to Holyrood and wish him well for his time here.

The additional 1,000 teachers and 500 classroom assistants are part of our overall commitment to 3,500 teachers and classroom assistants. Those are whole-time-equivalent figures, but the precise balance in each local authority will be for the authority to judge on the basis of need. We will work with local authorities to get the detail of that to them as quickly as possible in order to aid with the planning that is under way. The commitment builds on the additional teachers that were recruited over the previous session of Parliament.

I want to pick up on what Lorna Slater has said about being bold, taking risks and leaving our comfort zones. The parliamentary arithmetic of the chamber means that my Government could decide to govern alone, as we did in the previous parliamentary session, and the Greens would be justified in saying that they do not want to have any formal co-operation. However, both parties have decided not to do that, not because we need to but because we think that it could be in the interests of the country.

In doing that, we are taking a risk. I hope that the talks that we are holding go well, but they might not succeed. However, we think that it is a risk worth taking because of the scale of the challenge that we face and the public’s expectation of seeing politicians work together where we can.

It is correct that the challenges that we face are huge and have implications for every aspect of what we do. We need to see them in a holistic way. That is why, for example, I have appointed a Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport, bringing together areas in which there is normally tension and recognising the fact that meeting the challenges that we face will take cross-Government action. I am determined to lead in that way.

I welcome the constructive way in which the Greens have entered discussions, which I hope will develop positively. The Greens are to be commended for taking that risk, and I think that the people of Scotland stand to benefit. I very much look forward to progressing our agenda in that spirit.

I thank Willie Coffey for his question. Since he is a good and dear friend of mine, I will stay completely clear of the issue of football for the duration of my answer.

On the specifics of the question, we will shortly set out the detail of the digital boost fund and our other funding commitments to improve the digital connectedness and capability of the country. One of the important commitments that we have given—I have mentioned it already today—is to implement in full the Logan review, which will be so important in our realising the economic potential of becoming a high-tech nation.

Also, crucially, we recognise that there is work that we have started that must still be progressed in order to make sure that we close the digital divide. Getting devices and connections to the people who are most in need is critical—we have committed to work to ensure that every young person in our schools has access to a laptop or a tablet. We must ensure that we have the appropriate digital infrastructure and that people have the skills to use the infrastructure, devices and connections. It is an exciting programme of work that will bring many benefits to Scotland and will—if we do it right—give Scotland a competitive edge in the global economy.

Yes. Our manifesto—if memory serves me correctly, it was not the only manifesto that did so—committed to taking forward, obviously with appropriate consultation, the recommendations in Lady Dorrian’s report. I am very committed to doing that. I hope that it is an area on which we can build significant cross-party consensus.

The equally safe plan is important. One of the key commitments that we made in the election was to a new £100 million multiyear fund to support the specialist front-line services that do so much to help and support people who are affected by domestic violence and sexual violence. I have set out today that we will, within our first 100 days, make available the first of the money from that fund. The organisations across our country that provide that specialist support do a fantastic job, but their services are under pressure. There are often waiting times for access to the services; we are determined to address that.

Anas Sarwar is right: this is not day 1 of an SNP Government; this is the beginning of a re-elected SNP’s term of government. The people of Scotland had the opportunity to pass judgment on—what did he say?—5,136 days of an SNP Government, and they re-elected it with a record number of votes. Everybody in the chamber, if they care about democracy, has to recognise that basic fact. However, I want to reach out and work together. Not long after the election, I initiated a meeting with Anas Sarwar that I thought was constructive, and I look to build on it.

On the specifics that Anas Sarwar asked about, we have already established the young person’s guarantee and we are absolutely willing to have discussions about how we build and develop it. Our first budget will set out how we will proceed with the doubling of the Scottish child payment, which is something that we all want to do as quickly as possible. On cancer, the work to remobilise our NHS is already under way. I said in my statement that we have already opened, in Dumfries and Galloway, the first of the rapid diagnostic centres that I committed to during the election, and that two more will open over the next few weeks.

All that work is under way. The Government will get on with it, whether or not the Opposition parties choose to co-operate with us. However, the door is open. Let us genuinely try to do our politics differently. Let us respect differences and debate them vigorously, but, yes, let us come together.

During the campaign, Anas Sarwar made much of wanting a different style of politics. It is now time to prove whether he is prepared to put that into action. He will find my door open and a real willingness for us all to work together.

During the election campaign, my party promised to focus on steering Scotland through the Covid crisis, we set out an ambitious programme to drive recovery and we pledged to give people in Scotland a choice over our future when the crisis has passed. We were elected on a clear mandate, with a record number of votes, to deliver on those commitments, and that is what we intend to do.

We have already started that work. Our most immediate priority is to lead Scotland safely through and out of the pandemic. To that end, we will steer a careful course back to normality. We will support our test and protect teams, we will implement enhanced public health measures when outbreaks arise and we will deliver vaccinations as quickly as supplies allow. We will also work with the business sector, to provide as much clarity and support as possible.

We recognise that, as we come out of the pandemic, there will be bumps in the road, as we are experiencing in Glasgow just now. However, the vaccine roll-out gives us firm hope that we are on the right track. Therefore, over the next three weeks, we will set out our expectations for the stage beyond level 0, as—we hope—we return to a much greater degree of normality.

We will also act now to learn lessons for the future. We have already committed to there being a comprehensive public inquiry and, within our first 100 days, we will establish a standing committee on pandemics. We will also lead a wider mission of national recovery and renewal. I have appointed the Deputy First Minister as Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery, and today he will convene the first meeting of the new cross-party steering group on Covid recovery.

A central part of the Government’s programme is to support our national health service. In our first 100 days, we will publish an NHS recovery plan setting out how we will achieve a 10 per cent increase in activity in key services. We are already implementing a 4 per cent average pay increase this year for NHS agenda for change staff. That increase, backdated to December, will be in payslips from next month.

Further, we are on course to open the first three rapid diagnostic centres for cancer. The Dumfries and Galloway centre opened last week and saw its first patient on Monday. Centres in Fife and in Ayrshire and Arran will open in the next few weeks.

As part of our 100-day plan, we are taking steps to permanently end charges in private finance initiative hospital car parks. We will prepare legislation to remove dental charges for care leavers, as the first step towards abolishing dental charges altogether. We will also publish a women’s health plan.

During the course of this parliamentary session, we will increase spending on the NHS in Scotland by at least 20 per cent. We will complete construction of the new elective treatment centres and, by 2025, recruit an additional 1,500 staff to work in them.

Over the next decade, we will invest £10 billion in the NHS estate to support the renewal and replacement of health facilities across the country, including the Edinburgh eye pavilion here in our capital city.

One important investment that I can announce today is the £12 million that we are providing to take East Ayrshire community hospital into full NHS ownership, bringing its PFI contract to an early close. We will also increase direct investment in mental health services by 25 per cent over the course of this session, and we will deliver on action to reduce the unacceptable toll of drug deaths in our country.

The pandemic has brought home to all of us just how much we rely on care services and carers. I can therefore confirm that in our first 100 days we will legislate to ensure that all those who receive the carers allowance supplement will in December receive a double payment, worth £460.

Moreover, in our first 100 days we will begin the consultation on legislation to establish a national care service. We intend to introduce that legislation during the first year of this session and expect the service to be operational by the end of it. It will, in my view, be the most important public sector innovation since the establishment of our national health service.

We will also during the first 100 days complete one of the previous Parliament’s major legacies. From August, all three and four-year-olds, and two-year-olds who need it most, will be eligible for more than 1,100 hours of free early learning and childcare each year. In this session, we will expand childcare further by developing the provision of wraparound care and after-school clubs.

We will also continue our work to close the school attainment gap. In our first 100 days, we will publish the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report on Scottish education and start to implement its recommendations. We will provide local authorities with the first instalment of our expanded £1 billion Scottish attainment fund.

We will fund councils for the first phase of our commitment to recruit 3,500 more teachers and classroom assistants. We will begin work to ensure that all children have access to a laptop or tablet and will take steps to remove charges for core curriculum activities and for music and arts education, including those for instrumental music tuition.

We will fund a special £20 million programme of support and activities this summer for children and young people. We will make free breakfasts and lunches available to all primary 4 children in Scotland as the next step towards extending those meals to all primary school children, all year round.

We will increase the school clothing grant and the best start food grant and—before we formally expand the Scottish child payment next year and prepare to double its value—we will provide interim support for eligible children, which will include a £100 payment near the start of the summer holidays.

To support young adults we will, during this session, raise the age at which people become liable for council tax from 18 to 22. We will establish a new grant of £200 a year for care-experienced young people as part of our promise to those with experience of care. We will continue to develop the young persons guarantee, ensuring that every young person has the opportunity of education, training or work. We will fund colleges to deliver 5,000 short, industry-focused courses for young people and we will establish a green jobs academy and set out the next phase of our national transition training fund.

That support for skills and young people is part of our wider mission to create a fairer Scotland. During our first 100 days, we will provide 40,000 digital devices to the households that need them most. We will develop a plan to tackle social isolation and loneliness. We will begin longer-term work to develop a minimum income guarantee. We will also invest the first part of our multiyear £100 million commitment to support specialist front-line organisations tackling domestic abuse and sexual violence.

Throughout this session, we will also support safer communities by investing in our police and fire services and will continue to support good quality affordable housing. In our first 100 days, we will begin work on a new strategy for the rented sector and a review of student accommodation. We will invest a total of £3.5 billion during this session to support our pledge to deliver 100,000 new affordable homes by 2032. We will continue our work to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. We will invest a further £1.6 billion and introduce new housing standards to support the decarbonisation of heating.

We will also work with councils, businesses and third sector organisations to improve local neighbourhoods. That will include legislation to support community wealth building and steps to ensure more local procurement. In our first 100 days, we will launch the Scotland loves local campaign to encourage more support for local businesses.

That is just one of the ways in which we will promote economic recovery. During our first 100 days, we will establish a new council for economic transformation. We will support specific business sectors, including food and drink and tourism. We will publish a plan for the safe reopening of cultural venues and performances and we will work with the events sector to support its full resumption.

We will continue to support our digital ambitions. In our first 100 days, we will restart the digital boost scheme and open a new 5G innovation centre in Dundee. We will fully implement the Logan review during this session. We will also complete our investment in the National Manufacturing Institute, continue to promote our vision for trade and increase infrastructure spending. We will also capitalise the Scottish National Investment Bank with a further £1 billion.

We will work to ensure that our recovery is fair. We will promote fair work, including through public sector procurement. We will support women entrepreneurs with £50 million of funding for a women’s business centre. We will boost our rural economy through, for example, a rural entrepreneur fund. Over the course of this session, we will help willing companies to pilot a four-day working week as we explore whether the changes in working practices that have been brought about by the pandemic can improve wellbeing and productivity in the long term.

We will also ensure that our recovery is a green one. In less than six months’ time, Glasgow is due to host the 26th UN climate change conference of the parties—COP26—the most important discussions to take place in the world this year, so in our first 100 days we will publish an indicative national defined contribution, setting out how Scotland will become a net zero nation by 2045.

We will take further steps to decarbonise our transport network, including, in our first 100 days, beginning the process of taking ScotRail into public ownership. We will work with local authorities to resume low-emission zones in our cities and we will encourage active travel, which will include a scheme to provide bikes for children. We will also introduce legislation to make bus travel free for young people under the age of 22 and convene a bus decarbonisation task force to remove the majority of fossil-fuel buses from public transport by the end of 2023.

Over the parliamentary session, we will protect and enhance our natural habitats and reduce waste. We will increase woodland creation from 12,000 hectares a year to 18,000 hectares a year. Over this decade, we will invest more than £250 million in peatland restoration. We will ban single-use plastic cutlery, launch a deposit return scheme for single-use drinks containers and introduce a bill to promote the circular economy.

Finally, we will work to seize the economic opportunities that a move to net zero will create. In our first 100 days, we will set out a strategic investment assessment, as we seek to support the offshore wind supply chain. Over the parliamentary session, we will invest £100 million to support the development of hydrogen technologies. We will help companies in high-carbon sectors transition to low-carbon technologies and services. As we do all that, we will stay true to the principle of a just transition, both here in Scotland and around the world.

As I very much hope is obvious from the policy initiatives that I have just set out, the Government is focused on steering Scotland through the Covid crisis and building a sustainable and fair recovery from it.

There are many elements of our vision and our programme that I hope will command support across the chamber. Having talked about what we intend to do, however, I will say a few words about how we aim to do it.

It is often said—and I think that it is broadly true—that among at least some of the parties in the chamber there is more, in a policy sense, that unites us than divides us. Indeed, when the Parliament was established, the hope was that a more consensual and constructive way of working would take root. The promise back then was that the old ways of Westminster would not simply be transplanted here to Holyrood. We may not always have lived up to that, but if there was ever a time to renew that promise, it is surely now.

In Scotland—and right across our world—we have massive challenges to confront and overcome: a global pandemic, the climate emergency, and the need to build an economic recovery that is strong, sustainable and fair. In the face of all that, people across Scotland expect—indeed, I suspect that they demand—a grown-up and co-operative approach to politics that puts the interests of the country first.

Without any doubt, my party won a substantial mandate in the election. As I have just set out in summary, we have an ambitious policy programme to take forward, but we do not claim a monopoly of wisdom. We want to reach out and find the best solutions to the toughest of problems. Our duty is to co-operate, not in order to find the lowest common denominator, but as a way of raising the bar ever higher.

That is how I will seek to govern in this new session of the Parliament. Indeed, shortly after the election, I met Anas Sarwar to discuss areas where the Scottish National Party and Labour might work together. I am keen to develop those discussions further and I extend a similar offer to other parties across the chamber.

Most significantly, I can share with the Parliament that, since the election, I have had a series of exploratory discussions with the Scottish Green Party about how we might work together more formally in the future. Initially, even though we were not negotiating a coalition, the discussions were supported through the formation of Government facility that is available to all parties during and immediately after an election. Since the new Government was appointed last week, the discussions have been supported by the civil service, at my direction.

I am pleased to advise the Parliament that, at a meeting in Bute house last night, I agreed with the Scottish Green Party that we will move the informal discussions to the next stage. I confirm that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party will enter structured talks, supported by the civil service, with a view to reaching a formal co-operation agreement, if we can.

The talks will focus on exactly what the content, extent and scope of any agreement will be. Any agreement that emerges from the talks will be subject to the necessary approval processes of the Cabinet and each of our parties.

What we hope to achieve is potentially groundbreaking. In the coming weeks, we will seek to agree policy areas in which we would formally co-operate and, within each, identify the shared objectives and policy initiatives that we would agree to work together on. I am confident that those policy areas will include the climate emergency and how we can accelerate our progress to net zero. However, we are keen to identify other issues, too—not just those on which we have a similar outlook but those on which co-operation would be more challenging for both of us.

We will seek to agree a model of joint working in government to support progress in the areas of co-operation. That could include formal processes of consultation and, in our agreed areas of co-operation, the Green Party’s involvement in Scottish Government policy development and delivery. It would also include details of any reciprocal support that the Greens would give to aspects of the Government’s legislative, policy and budgetary programmes.

We need to see how much progress the talks can make, and we should not get too far ahead of ourselves today but, as we embark on the process, we set no limits on our ambition. In that vein, let me be clear that, although the outcome is not guaranteed or pre-agreed, it is not inconceivable that a co-operation agreement could lead in the future to a Green minister or ministers being part of the Government.

The key point for today is that we are both agreeing to come out of our comfort zones to find new ways of working for the common good—to change the dynamic of our politics for the better and give meaning to our Parliament’s founding principles. What we are embarking on will require compromise on both sides, but it will also require us to be bold. Given the challenges that we face, that is a good thing, and it is also the whole point.

It is worth noting that neither of us does this because we need to; it is not being forced on us by parliamentary arithmetic—indeed, we are taking a risk that the talks will not succeed. However, we are prepared to do this because, if we succeed, the benefits to the country could be significant. By working together, we can help to build a better future for Scotland.

As we look to Scotland’s future, one obvious point of agreement between us is that that future should be in Scotland’s hands. As we emerge from crisis, a fundamental question must be addressed—who has the right to decide the kind of country that Scotland will become after the crisis is over?

There is a choice of two very different futures. There is the Westminster choice of a hard Brexit that costs jobs, hits living standards and holds back recovery; trade deals that threaten our rural communities; social security cuts that put children into poverty; callous dawn raids; and an increase in nuclear warheads while overseas aid is cut. All of that is against the wishes of most people who live here. Or there is the alternative—not a panacea, but a future in which this Parliament has the full range of powers to shape and build a fairer and more prosperous country. In that future, we are an equal partner with our friends in the rest of the United Kingdom and across Europe.

The path that Scotland takes should not be the choice of any single politician or party; it must be a decision of the people. That is why, once the crisis is over, people in Scotland should have the right to make that choice. The election result delivered a substantial majority in the Parliament for an independence referendum in the current parliamentary session. There is no justification for the UK Government to seek to block that mandate—to do so would suggest that the Tories no longer consider the UK to be a voluntary union of nations, and it would be profoundly undemocratic.

The question of what powers the Parliament should have will always be debated passionately, but our different opinions on that should not obscure our common desire to make the most of the powers that we have. That task is more urgent than ever. This session of Parliament will be the most important in our devolved history.

The past 15 months have been full of sadness and heartbreak, but they have also reminded us of the human capacity for ingenuity, compassion and solidarity. New vaccines were developed from a standing start, testing infrastructure was established from scratch and people pulled together in ways that would once have been unimaginable. There are fewer changes now that seem unimaginable or unachievable.

The plans that I have set out are unashamedly ambitious. We will tackle the Covid crisis as our immediate priority. We will lead by example in addressing the climate crisis. We will create a national care service to match the post-war national health service. We will widen opportunities for young people. We will build a modern, high-tech economy while staying true to enduring values of fairness and compassion. We will seek a better politics and we will put Scotland’s future in Scotland’s hands.

Our programme is rooted in today’s reality, but it also shows the way to a brighter tomorrow. I look forward to working across the chamber as we get on with the job of delivering it.