Chamber and committees

Cyber resilience underpins everything that we deliver as a Government and is crucial to fully realising Scotland’s digital ambitions. Cybersecurity policy is reserved. However, in recent years, we have worked steadily with key partners to build Scotland’s cyber resilience. In 2021, we published “The Strategic Framework for a Cyber Resilient Scotland”, which sets out a vision for a digitally secure and resilient Scotland and builds on our initial strategy, which was published in 2015.

The Scottish Government has been working directly with public bodies to improve their cyber resilience. Through the roll-out of the public sector cyber resilience framework, more public bodies are regularly testing their incident management and business continuity plans. That can only help to improve their resistance to cyberattacks.

We are also progressing with the establishment of the Scottish cyber co-ordination centre, which draws together the work of Police Scotland, the National Cyber Security Centre and other organisations to enhance Scotland’s ability to prepare for and respond to cyber incidents.

The Government makes substantial investments in the Highlands and Islands air network. As I have set out, £77 million is being spent to support that network. Obviously, the Government will engage constructively with local communities, as I and other ministers do constantly. However, we have to make choices about the availability of resources and concentrate those resources in the most effective way to ensure that we support island communities.

As I announced in the emergency budget review last week, we are putting additional financial support into island communities to support the recovery from Covid.

The Government has a range of measures to tackle health inequalities in all our communities, which include the work that we undertake in relation to the eradication of child poverty, as captured in the child poverty delivery plan that the Parliament considered earlier this year. At its heart, the plan addresses some of the fundamental issues that Carol Mochan puts to me.

That is supplemented by the work that is undertaken to tackle and address addiction in our communities, whether that is drug addiction or alcohol addiction, through the various measures that have been put in place in that respect.

In addition, the Government has achieved the objectives on the recruitment of staff in relation to the provision of counselling services in our schools and in the wider community as a consequence of the projects and priorities that we set out.

I acknowledge the importance of the issues that Carol Mochan raises, and I assure her of the Government’s commitment, across a range of portfolios, to addressing those issues, because the questions of health inequalities are directly connected to the questions of poverty and wider inequality in our society. Through its agenda, the Government is determined to address those questions.

I agree with the point that Natalie Don puts to me. [Interruption.]

I agree with Natalie Don, and my principal ally in providing me with material to support that position is none other than the chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party. Mr Craig Hoy said:

“Liz Truss made the wrong decision in going for growth in the way that she did and I think there is a price tag attached to that. I think we have to be realistic about the consequence of that, which may be tax cuts or public spending cuts.”

The only bit of that comment that I disagree with Mr Hoy about is that I do not think that the consequence of that will be either tax cuts or public spending cuts; I suspect that it will be both. That will be the unbridled responsibility of the Conservative Party, which, when that stupid budget came out, demanded that I follow that course of action. That would have inflicted misery on the public in Scotland. That budget, coupled with the Tories’ inaction on energy costs over the summer, means that the Tories are responsible for the cost of living crisis, and they should pay a price for it.

Such issues are a matter for concern. Mr Bibby’s points sit against a backdrop of widespread improvements in the school estate across the whole of Scotland. When this Government came into office, 63 per cent of children were being educated in buildings rated as good or satisfactory; that figure is now in excess of 90 per cent as a consequence of the investment that the Government has made. Mr Bibby raises an individual problem about one school, but the general nature of the school estate in Scotland is improving.

I will happily meet Mr Bibby and his constituents to consider the issues that he has raised, but I encourage him to recognise that, although issues can emerge in the planning of individual projects, that is against a backdrop of sustained investment by the Government and the quality of the school estate is improving across the country.

I associate myself with Mr Sarwar’s remarks in relation to remembrance day.

In relation to the situation in the national health service and the comments that he recounted from the Royal College of Nursing, I make it absolutely clear that the Government remains committed to, and willing to engage in, dialogue and negotiation with the Royal College of Nursing and the other affected and interested trade unions, as we have been doing for some considerable time. Notwithstanding the decisions that have been made by members of the RCN, we will continue that dialogue, and I commit the Government to that today.

In relation to workforce planning, we have record staffing levels in the national health service. Those staffing levels have been the product of sustained investment by the Government, despite the climate of austerity in which we have been operating for some considerable time. The Government will continue to sustain that investment to ensure that we have adequate staffing levels.

The Government is firmly restricted in what it can do by the financial context in which we are operating and by the pressures on the public finances. However, I assure Mr Sarwar and the Parliament that the Government will do everything in our power to properly support the health service workforce and ensure that we have adequate numbers of staff in our national health service.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. I pay tribute to members of staff who are working phenomenally hard on the back of a pandemic that Mr Ross never mentioned and that has put a huge strain on our national health service. Staff in the national health service—the largest number of staff ever provided in the NHS, by this Government—are doing their level best to support the people of our country.

Climate change is identified as a strategic priority in the Scottish Government’s 2022 fire framework. The framework requires the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service to invest in the provision of specialist resources and in technological advancements, and to undertake prevention and public awareness activity, to enhance its response to the increased flooding and wildfires that are associated with climate change.

The Government is responding to the full range of climate risks that have been identified for Scotland through its 2019 climate change adaptation programme, which sets out more than 170 policies and proposals to build resilience to the impact of global climate change as part of our just transition to net zero emissions by 2045. We are preparing our next programme in response to the most recent United Kingdom climate change risk assessment. That programme is to be published in 2024.