Chamber and committees

Before responding to the question, I acknowledge again Mrs McDonald’s bravery in continuing to raise the issues. I know that she wants to ensure that all parties learn from the case; that is certainly what I want and what I am determined will happen.

There was a significant case review of the matter, and the Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service accepted all the review’s recommendations for them. The SPS has already taken a range of actions to respond to those recommendations.

Home leave for prisoners—I am not talking about this particular case at the moment; I am talking about the situation in general—is a necessary and accepted part of the rehabilitation process. Rightly, prisoners are subject to assessment and review, and when a situation arises that shows that that has not gone in the way that it should have done, it is absolutely vital that lessons are learned.

On parole hearings, the sentence imposed following conviction in any case is a matter for a court. In turn, that determines when someone who is sentenced to an order for lifelong restriction may be considered for parole under licence conditions. It is then a matter for the independent parole board to consider when and whether an individual can be released.

We are seeing a rising trend in cases at the moment. We consider that it is being driven by the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of omicron. It is important that we continue to monitor that, so the Scottish Government will continue to monitor it very closely. None of us wants a return to restrictions of any nature.

At this stage, we are not seeing the translation into hospital cases that we saw at earlier stages of the pandemic, particularly before there were vaccinations, but that does not mean that the illness is mild for everyone. Having recently had Covid, I know that it is a nasty virus and that it can affect people seriously. Christine Grahame is therefore right to remind us that it is important to continue to take precautions in order to try to limit potential transmission of the virus. Above all, it is important that people who are eligible for any dose of the vaccine but have not had yet had that dose get it, because it provides significant protection against serious illness.

Bullying is always unacceptable. We want people to have available in health boards avenues to raise any experiences or concerns that they have.

In 2020, a new bullying policy was introduced to ensure that more support was available. The Government also commissioned John Sturrock QC to review the culture in NHS Highland, in particular. One outcome of that was the establishment of a ministerial working group to examine the issues of culture more broadly. That work was impacted by Covid.

However, I can confirm that we are now developing a new national leadership development programme so that the health, social work and social care sectors can carry that work on, and to help to foster an open, welcoming and supportive culture in the national health service, whereby all staff are valued and treated with dignity and respect.

Before I come back to the very serious issue that has been raised, I acknowledge that recruitment is a challenge in the NHS, as it is in many parts of our public services and, indeed, our economy more generally. One of the reasons why recruitment is such a challenge—it is appropriate to say this, because it is six years to the day since the Brexit referendum—is Brexit and the ending of free movement, for example. The issues that we are discussing should remind us all of that folly. I hope that Conservatives, in particular, are reminded of it.

On bullying in the national health service, we should all be very clear that bullying is unacceptable. It has no place anywhere, and it certainly has no place in the NHS. As politicians, we should unite to send that message loudly and clearly.

On the specific question that was asked about John Sturrock’s review of cultural issues in NHS Highland, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care asked all health boards to consider the recommendations, to review their internal assurance mechanisms and to advise the Government of actions that they had taken. We will continue to monitor progress on that closely. As I said in my original answer, we are also developing a new national leadership development programme, which we will launch later this year.

I will not repeat everything that I have said to Alasdair Allan, except to say that I understand the importance of the issue and the concerns that communities have.

I will not commit today to a particular solution without the proper consideration that that would require and merit. As I said in my answer to Alasdair Allan, any options and solutions that are put forward will be properly considered, which is why the transport minister has agreed to meet not just Alasdair Allan but the ferries community board.

Any possible mitigations that the Government might be able to support will be properly considered. When consideration of the specific suggestion that Rhoda Grant put forward has taken place, I am happy to ask the transport minister to feed back directly to her.

First, I welcome Douglas Ross’s line of questioning. It is at least an implicit—if not yet an explicit—recognition that people in Scotland will have their say on independence in line with the democratic mandate that this Parliament has.

The second point is that the case for independence is not distinct or separate from the big challenges that Scotland, in common with countries across the world, is facing right now. Instead, independence is part of the solution to those challenges. It is about how we equip ourselves better as a country to meet those challenges and fulfil our potential.

Independence is not the distraction that Douglas Ross wants to pretend that it is. Instead, it presents an alternative to a failing United Kingdom system—a failing UK system that gives us a Prime Minister right now with no democratic or moral mandate in Scotland; that has given us a Brexit that we did not vote for; that is giving us the highest inflation in the G7 and the lowest projected growth in the G20, with the sole exception of Russia; that is constraining our public finances and tying the hands of the Scottish Government; and, of course, that give us the obscenity of a Government that tries to shore up its own base by deporting vulnerable people to Rwanda, which is utterly immoral.

Independence is an alternative to that. It would give this Parliament additional powers to navigate those challenges and meet the full massive potential of this country.

—economy in the UK for inward investment outside of London.

Business research and development is up under this Government by 99.5 per cent, compared with under 30 per cent in the rest of the UK.

Let us turn to schools. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Scotland has the highest proportion of 25 to 65-year-olds in the UK with post-secondary education. Of all UK nations, we have the highest number of teachers. We have the highest number of schools per 100,000 pupils. On the last exam day, we saw higher passes at the highest level in the history of devolution. On access to university, the independent commissioner for fair access says that Scotland has “set the pace” with regard to fair access across the UK—and, of course, we have free tuition in Scotland.

On justice, recorded crime is at one of the lowest levels since 1974—down 41 per cent under this Government.

Lastly, on health and social care, we have record staff numbers.

We have higher staff numbers than in other parts of the UK, and we have the best-paid staff anywhere in the UK.

If that is what we can do with the powers of devolution, imagine how much better we can do with the powers of independence.

On drug deaths, I have said—and people who have been listening to earlier First Minister’s question times will have heard me say—that we will look very sympathetically at Douglas Ross’s bill when he publishes it. We cannot do that until the bill is published.

I hope that we can find consensus and agreement. Some concerns have been raised by experts about what might be in the bill; other experts have voiced real support for it. The willingness to work together is there.

Of course, we are investing £250 million over this session of Parliament to tackle drug deaths and, although there is no room for complacency, we have seen in recent statistics a reduction in the number of suspected drug deaths over the months to March 2021.

Going back to other aspects of Douglas Ross’s question, he said, bizarrely, that in my previous answer I did not mention the NHS or the attainment gap; I mentioned both. I pointed to the commissioner for fair access. A core part of tackling the attainment gap is to reduce that inaccess to university, and the independent commissioner has described our progress as an “unambiguous success”. I also mentioned the NHS—the fact that we have record staff numbers and the best-paid staff anywhere in the UK.

Lastly, Douglas Ross should really stop—there is a real desperation at the heart of his approach to independence. It is very telling, is it not, that he is so terrified of the substantive debate on independence—so terrified of the verdict of the Scottish people on independence—that he is reduced to somehow trying to pretend that democracy in Scotland is illegal.

It is not a question of whether this Government respects the rule of law; we do and always will. The question is, is Douglas Ross a democrat? I think that the glaring answer to that is no.