Chamber and committees

I acknowledge the seriousness and significance of the issue. On the question of the proposed right to addiction recovery (Scotland) bill, I have indicated that I will happily meet Douglas Ross to discuss it. I am open to taking seriously any elements of that bill that will help us in our efforts as part of the process. I say to Sue Webber that the Government has tried—and, under my leadership, will continue to try—to be as open as possible to constructing measures that will be effective in delivering better outcomes than we are currently delivering.

At First Minister’s question time a couple of weeks ago, I responded to Sue Webber’s colleague Russell Findlay by indicating that additional threats are coming our way because of the strength of some of the synthetic opioids that are now entering the drugs market in Scotland. That has to be tackled, and we are trying to tackle it.

However, I signal the Government’s willingness to engage constructively across the Parliament to find ways and interventions that will allow us to reduce the number of drug deaths, because I acknowledge the severity and seriousness of the harm that is caused to families and individuals. I remain open to a wide cross-party discussion on that question.

I was deeply troubled by those reports. Any violence against women, whenever that has occurred, is abhorrent.

It would not be appropriate for me to comment on criminal investigations and prosecutions, but I note that Police Scotland launched an operation in 2018 to examine historical sex offences. I want all victims to have the confidence to report sexual crimes, no matter when they happened. Therefore, I am pleased that Police Scotland has encouraged anyone who has not previously reported such assaults to come forward and do so.

I am aware of the issue that Mr Doris raises and the Cabinet Secretary for Transport has written to the SPT about it.

The ZoneCard is a commercial ticket that is managed by bus, rail and subway operators. Neither the Scottish Government nor Transport Scotland were part of the fares discussions by the companies involved. We want to make it easier and more affordable for people to choose to travel by public transport, as it will support economic growth, tackle inequality and address climate change.

The fair fares review presents a package of measures to make public transport more accessible, available and affordable, with the cost of transport being more fairly shared across Government, business and society. I hope that some of the thinking in the fair fares review can lead to a different outcome in relation to what is a very significant issue for Mr Doris’s constituents and others in the west of Scotland.

I respect the fact that people have a different opinion from me, but I am not a fan of the nuclear industry and I do not support investment in nuclear power plants. I never have and I never will. The country should focus on creating clean, green, renewable energy resources.

We have a formidable track record of investment in Scotland and a formidable record of transformation in the generation of electricity in our country. What would help us is reform of the electricity market in the United Kingdom, which might result in people living in the areas that generate the electricity not having to pay exorbitant energy costs, which is the current procedure in the UK energy market. That might be something that Mr Whitfield could take up with his colleagues, should they be in a position to influence those issues on 5 July and later.

That is why Scotland has an accident and emergency system that is the best performing in the United Kingdom and has been so for the past nine years—[Interruption.]

I have set out the solutions in my earlier answer to Mr Ross. The Government is very focused on ensuring that the national health service meets the needs of individuals. We all want the NHS to be able to deliver what people require when they require it.

The Government has taken the hard decisions to increase the resources that are available to the NHS. If we had, for example, just passed on the consequentials to the health service that were allocated through United Kingdom funding formulas, we would have passed on a lower amount of money than we have actually invested in the national health service. This Government has taken hard decisions about increasing tax on higher earners so that we can allocate more resources to the national health service.

I accept that, even having undertaken that allocation of increased resources, there remain significant strains on the national health service. The point that I made on Tuesday evening—in the discussion in which Mr Ross and I were involved—is that we cannot have, as an outcome of this election, a continuation of the Conservative Government’s austerity, because that would be disastrous for the national health service.

As I always indicate to Parliament when I am responding to questions, I take responsibility for the actions of my Government and the public services delivered on its behalf—that is my duty as First Minister on all occasions.

I suspect that the situation that Mr Ross recounted is addressed by the fact that our hospitals are operating at such a level of congestion that individuals are not able to be transferred from accident and emergency into wider hospital care for the simple reason that those hospitals are congested because of delayed discharge. That is the explanation of the problem.

The solution to the problem is, as I said in my first answer, to work with local authorities to expand the provision of social care in the community to ensure that we address the delayed discharge issue.

Ultimately, it comes back to the resources that are available to the national health service. I have set out that this Government has taken responsibility for that, because we have been prepared to take the hard decision to increase tax and ensure that more resources have been allocated to the national health service.

Mr Ross would be in a stronger position if he had not argued for me to follow the budget of Liz Truss. That was what Douglas Ross wanted me to do. He wanted me to follow—[Interruption.]

It might just be me, but I am not sure that the analogy that was conveyed in the question worked particularly well. People would expect their Government to act in an evidence-based fashion. That is exactly what we will do. We will look at the evidence in any individual application, although I point out for factual accuracy that we do not take those decisions. Those decisions are taken by the United Kingdom Government, but we would argue for that consideration. That is why I say that a reckless commitment to 100 new oil and gas licences is just the territory of climate denier status, and I will go nowhere near that.

A really good volume of investment in green jobs is being undertaken. The Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy was in Nigg just a few weeks ago at the inauguration of the Sumitomo plant, which has been a fabulous investment in the renewables sector. I was in Ardersier, where there has been a significant investment in green jobs in a project involving the Scottish National Investment Bank and Haventus.

Over the Scottish National Party Government’s time in office, we have substantially decarbonised electricity generation in Scotland, whereby, if my memory serves me right, our net electricity generation has gone from 26 per cent to 113 per cent in the most recent data. All of that demonstrates our commitment to renewable energy, which will be absolutely central to the Government’s energy strategy when it is published.

The report by the Resolution Foundation highlights that the UK has faced a decade of economic stagnation and low productivity growth. It also shows that the UK’s trade openness has declined by 0.7 percentage points since 2019, compared with a 1.2 percentage point rise for G7 countries excluding the United Kingdom. A hard Brexit that Scotland voted to reject has damaged our economy. Scotland is open for business, trade and investment, but actions by the UK Government, such as taking us out of the European Union, and the UK Government’s damaging approach to migration, are holding back our economy. Only independence will give Scotland the full range of powers to take economic decisions that are based on our own needs, with the full fiscal and tax levers of a normal independent country.

The NHS is at the top of my list of priorities—[Interruption.]