Chamber and committees

My substantive point was that there is, in my view, no requirement for legislative change because the decision is about court procedure. Claire Baker’s question highlights important issues relating to the conduct of court cases, which can have a bearing on the type of questions that are asked and on the type of evidence that is given and can cause enormous distress to the victims in those cases, who are invariably women.

The Government will carefully consider the implications of the ruling in the course of time and the courts will have to reflect on those issues. It would be deeply regrettable if there was any return to some of the court practices that were deeply distressing to the victims of sexual crime and I set out today my desire to ensure that that is not the outcome of the Supreme Court judgment.

We shared the final report of our social tariff working group with the UK Government in March this year, asking it to act on the recommendations. Analysis this week shows that, if those recommendations were implemented, around 660,000 households in Scotland would see their bills go down by an average of £700 under a targeted bill discount, lifting more than 150,000 households out of fuel poverty. We continue to seek engagement with the UK Government on that work and our position remains that it must take urgent action to protect households and to deliver on its promises, which it has singularly failed to do to date.

Obviously, there is a lot of talk about tax at the moment, and there is a lot of uncertainty about the UK Government’s position, which may well have implications for us. The Scottish Government will take the opportunity to consider those issues and will set out in an orderly fashion the approach that we will take on tax, given that we may well have a different tax landscape to consider. That is what the people of Scotland would expect us to do.

Through peatland action, our peatland restoration programme, we have restored around 90,000 hectares to date, including 14,860 hectares in 2024-25. This year, we are on track to deliver more than 12,000 hectares of restored peatland.

In the draft climate change plan that was published last week, we included a proposal to expand and extend our programme to restore 400,000 hectares by 2040. That reflects an increase in our ambition. Protecting, managing and restoring degraded peatlands is a vital part of mitigating and adapting to the climate and nature emergencies.

I do not think that Mr Ewing has put an either/or question to me. I do not want wildfires to happen in Scotland. They are happening because of climate change. We have to take the long-term climate action that is required to reduce the temperature of the planet.

As Parliament knows, I have been in Malawi and Zambia and have seen at close quarters the ferocious damage of climate change in those communities. It is happening here in Scotland: the wildfires are a symptom of the problem and we have had water scarcity in the north-east of Scotland right up until early October.

We cannot ignore the effects of climate change in our society. We have to take action, which is why the Government is committed to peatland restoration, and it is why, as Mr Fairlie set out in his statement to Parliament, the Government is committed to undertaking effective collaborative work to tackle the risk of wildfires in our society.

As I have set out to the Parliament, a whole series of examples of progress has been made in the national health service—not least the fact that the number of new out-patient waits lasting for longer than a year has fallen for four consecutive months. The total numbers on waiting lists for out-patients, in-patients and day cases have decreased, so progress has been made in that respect.

Activity in the national health service has increased, with extra appointments being made available in a whole range of disciplines. Operation numbers are up. A record number of hip and knee operations have been delivered as a consequence of interventions that I have made. In preparation for winter, we have frailty services in A and E departments the length and breadth of the country to ensure that people’s needs are being met.

Since I became First Minister, I have focused on ensuring that I strengthen the national health service to meet the needs of the people of Scotland. If anybody is looking around and wondering what a Labour Government in Scotland might be like after the elections in May, they will see the very disappointing spectacle of the United Kingdom Labour Government. Look at the behaviour and performance of the UK Government over the past 15 months. [Interruption.]

All contributions by Professor Muscatelli are worthy of consideration, and the Scottish Government will consider this one. On the report’s main topic of regional economic structures, I note that we are already committed to increasing regional empowerment and will provide further information on our plans in the coming weeks.

We note that Professor Muscatelli also identifies the requirement for a “supportive immigration policy” to contribute to economic growth and the need for the Scottish Government to “influence” the United Kingdom Government’s broken system. We need an immigration system that supports Scotland’s distinct demographic needs, and I urge the UK Government to finally recognise that.

We have maintained our manifesto commitments in relation to taxation. On the issue of the tax paid by people in Scotland, the Scottish Fiscal Commission’s briefing paper, which was published on Tuesday, indicated clearly that the

“majority of Scottish taxpayers pay less”

in taxation than they would if they lived in the rest of the United Kingdom. [Interruption.] That is what I have always said to the Parliament, and I will keep on saying it. Mr Hoy might not like that, but I am going to keep on saying the things that are the case.

As I set out in my earlier answer, we are taking a number of steps to extend our commitments on peatland restoration. That is one part of the programme for climate action that has been set out to Parliament. By the end of this year, we will have set out the planning that will be necessary to achieve the 2040 ambitions.

I agree with Ariane Burgess on the importance of taking such action to help us on our journey to net zero, and that is exactly the focus of the Government’s climate change plan.

I hope that it gives Christine Grahame some reassurance to learn that national planning framework 4 includes provision whereby development proposals for new commercial peat extraction, including extensions to existing sites, are not supported, except in relation to use in the whisky industry.

We continue to work towards delivering our commitment to ban the sale of horticultural peat, and we are currently exploring all legislative options for establishing new restrictions. I hope that that gives Christine Grahame some reassurance, but I would be happy to engage further on that question.