Chamber and committees

In line with relevant procurement legislation, the contract for the ferries that are currently being built for service on the Islay routes was awarded following a full and open tendering process, led by Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd—CMAL—which is the procuring authority. The bid that was received from that yard represented the best value for money in terms of quality and price.

First, I point out that Scotland already has the most generous concessionary fare scheme in the United Kingdom. More than 2.3 million people in Scotland are eligible not for capped bus fares, but for free bus travel. We continue to develop and assess options to create a fairer and more transparent system of fares in order to maintain and increase affordability for people who need it, which is why we are progressing the fair fares review. That review is considering the cost and availability of services and the range of discounts and concessionary schemes that are available on all modes of transport, which includes bus, rail and ferry.

I know that there is strong feeling on the issue. However, Aberdeen City Council has notified ministers of its intention to adopt the local development plan. Ministers will now consider that and, as part of their scrutiny, will consider previous Scottish Government recommendations and check whether reporters’ modifications have been fully translated into the modified plan. Of course, ministers will set out a decision in due course.

First, in relation to reports in the media this morning about staff in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde being asked to work 24-hour shifts, as I am assured by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and as the board has said publicly, that is not true. Let me just quote NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde:

“there is absolutely no truth to these claims. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde does not ask nursing staff to work a 24-hour shift, and there was no prospect that any staff member would need to work for 24 hours. To suggest otherwise is inaccurate and misleading”,

and I would not expect any health board to request any member of staff to do that.

Secondly, staff across the national health service in Scotland—and, indeed, staff across the national health services in England, Wales and Northern Ireland—are struggling right now. They are doing an extraordinary and magnificent job, and my heartfelt thanks go to all of them. However, they are struggling in the face of unprecedented pressure on our national health service—pressure from Covid and, even more so, in recent weeks, from flu and other respiratory illnesses. We hope that that pressure will abate in the weeks to come, but in the meantime the Government continues to do everything possible to support NHS boards as they address those pressures.

In relation to the announcement from NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde last night, as I said on Monday, we have empowered NHS boards to take action that they think is appropriate to protect critical and life-saving care. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has paused non-urgent elective procedures so that it can prioritise urgent treatment and cancer care, and I would expect that to be for a very short period.

Finally, it insults people’s intelligence to suggest that the problems that are being encountered in the NHS in Scotland, which are the same as the problems that are being encountered elsewhere, are somehow down to the health secretary. Is it, for example, the fault of Humza Yousaf that the kind of action that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde announced last night has also been taken in health services in south London, Surrey, York, Scarborough, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Southampton and Portsmouth? I could probably go on. These are unprecedented pressures, which we continue to support our NHS to address. [Applause.]

—that the number of delayed discharges has reduced slightly in recent weeks, but there is much more to do. That was the reason for the interventions and the additional funding that I indicated on Monday and that the health secretary set out to the chamber on Tuesday.

We will continue to focus on providing the support and making the interventions that are necessary right now to help the NHS during this period of unprecedented demand. I remind Douglas Ross and other members of the unprecedented demand that is being faced not just in Scotland but all over the UK, and in much of the rest of the world as well.

First, on the procurement decisions, over recent weeks, the leader of the member’s party has rightly questioned me in the chamber and has seemed to suggest that, somehow, we did not follow proper procurement policies in the award of other ferry contracts. Therefore, it is really important to stress that, in all these matters, we have complied with the relevant procurement legislation.

In relation to steel, that is a matter for the company that has the contract. The contract that has been awarded is a standard international shipbuilding contract, and, as such, decisions regarding materials and equipment lie with the shipyard. I understand that the shipyard might have originally intended to source steel from Ukraine, but, for obvious reasons, it has had to look elsewhere. The shipyard will take those decisions, and I sure that it will apply all necessary objectives to the decisions that it reaches.

If I raised a smile in response to Douglas Ross, it was not directed at any health professional. I suppose that I was raising a smile—in challenging circumstances for everybody right now—about Douglas Ross accusing anybody else of throwing insults.

Every single day, the health secretary and I will continue to take the actions that are necessary to support our NHS during these very difficult times. I said earlier that I do not take anything for granted, and I do not intend to sound complacent at all about this: it is because we respect those people who work on the front line of our national health service so highly that we are offering them a much higher pay increase for next year than any other Government in the UK is offering. Thus far, we have avoided industrial action in our national health service. We will continue to do everything that we can to ensure that that continues.

We are supporting health boards, too, to address the reasons for long waits in our national health service—whether for an ambulance, in accident and emergency units or to be discharged from hospital—which is why we announced the action that we announced earlier this week. Too many patients are waiting too long for treatment right now, so we will continue to do everything that we can to address that situation while hoping that the pressures that are caused by, in the main, Covid and flu, abate over the weeks to come.

That should not take away from the fact—true in our Ambulance Service, our accident and emergency units, our general practices and across our hospitals and other healthcare settings—that the vast majority of patients in this country, even during these extremely difficult times, get excellent care on our national health service. That is down to the dedication of those people who work in it, which is why they have my grateful thanks every single day.

I do not think that front-line health service staff are wrong in what they say. I do not know why it took until yesterday for Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie to meet with health service professionals; the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care meets with them regularly, and I have engagements with them as well—[Interruption.]

What health service professionals say to us—I am sure that they said this to Anas Sarwar yesterday, too—is that challenges existed in our national health service before Covid. We have been taking action to address those challenges. On funding our national health service, front-line health funding has more than doubled under this Government—it is higher per head of population than it is in other parts of the United Kingdom. Almost 30,000 more people work in our NHS today than when this Government took office, and there are more healthcare professionals—doctors, qualified nurses or professionals across a range of groups—per head of population than there are in other parts of the UK. We will continue to work with front-line healthcare professionals to deal with those challenges.

I take issue with Anas Sarwar on his point that it is somehow not the case that Covid and flu are having a significant impact on those pressures. Right now, there are more than 1,200 patients with Covid in our hospitals, and anybody who says that that is not having an impact on what we are dealing with right now is, frankly, not dealing with reality. In the couple of weeks that led up to Christmas and over the Christmas period, 1,000 patients a week were admitted to our hospitals with flu, and anybody who says that that is not a significant factor in what we are dealing with right now is, frankly, not dealing with reality. I direct that comment at Anas Sarwar, not at healthcare professionals, who are dealing with those issues every day.

Whether on NHS pay—

We will continue to take a range of actions. What we announced this week was in addition to the actions that are already being taken and, of course, the record investment that we are putting into our national health service. In the next financial year, supported by the tax decisions that we are taking—asking those who can most afford it to pay a bit more in tax—an additional £1 billion will go into our NHS. We will support investment and, where it is appropriate and in the interest of patients, we will support reform in care and patient pathways in our NHS.

Nothing that Anas Sarwar has said to me has not already been said directly to Government by healthcare professionals, because we engage with them day in and day out. They are dealing with unprecedented pressures right now. Some of that necessitates longer-term reform of our NHS, but some of that is also absolutely being caused by the winter pressures that have been at their peak in recent weeks. I hope that, over the coming weeks—very soon—we will start to see flu levels reduce significantly, and that will start to reduce some of that pressure on our hospitals, although the situation with Covid remains more unpredictable and volatile, given the new variants that are circulating. I hope that we will see some of that pressure abate, but that will still leave a challenging situation in our health service, which is why the investment, the increase in staffing and the reforms continue to be important.

No Government anywhere has a single solution to the issues right now, but this Government remains focused on taking the actions that are necessary, which is why I think that we continue to have the trust of the people of Scotland as we do so.