Chamber and committees

I agree with Mr Fairlie on that point. The food and drink industry is currently facing numerous significant and challenging impacts as a result of the UK Government’s mishandling of Brexit at the time of a pandemic. Those issues are being added to by the challenges that come from the cost of living crisis and the war in Ukraine. All those issues—the cost of living, the implications of Brexit, the barriers to trade and the obstacles to the free movement of individuals—can be addressed by independence. That is why Mr Fairlie is absolutely right to put that point to Parliament.

I am pleased to support the first ever Scottish bus week and to celebrate the many environmental, economic and social benefits that buses provide to our communities.

The Scottish Government has put buses at the heart of Scotland’s just transition, funding more than 500 low-carbon buses across Scotland; providing free bus travel for people under 22 and for older and disabled people; and investing more than £500 million in bus priority infrastructure.

I urge all members to join us in supporting Scottish bus week and encourage more people to travel by bus.

One of the measures that this Government has taken has been to double the Scottish child payment to £20 per child per week. We are increasing it to £25 from the end of the year, and we will extend it to under-16s. That is not provided in any other part of the United Kingdom.

I remind Parliament that that measure was voted against by the Labour Party, because it voted against the budget. Much as I respect Pauline McNeill, I have to say to those in the Labour Party that, if they are going to come to Parliament and demand that we do things, the nice and decent thing would be to vote for those things when we put them to Parliament.

Secondly, yes, we will await what the chancellor says or is saying—I am not sure whether he is speaking at this precise moment. However, instead of complaining about what the UK Government is or is not doing, why do we not have the powers in this Parliament to take the actions that will remedy the situation?

Lastly, it also comes down to the decisions that are taken by individual public authorities in Scotland. Yesterday, in my own council area, in Perth and Kinross, we removed the Conservatives from power and a Scottish National Party administration was appointed. Its first act—its first policy—was to apply £700,000 of new money in cost of living measures to support my vulnerable constituents. What was the first act of some Labour authorities around the country? It was to give new jobs to the Tories—that is a disgrace for the Labour Party.

I made it clear in my first answer that I carry collective responsibility for the actions of the Government. I therefore accept that those decisions were taken by the Government, but they were taken individually by the transport minister.

I will give Douglas Ross the benefit of the note that he has quoted from, which was from a senior finance official. It said:

“Just finished my call with DFM. He now understands the background and that Mr McKay has cleared the proposal.”

That is the complete sentence that Douglas Ross is missing. The decision had been taken, and I was being briefed that there was no change to the budget that I had already sanctioned. Why is that answer not good enough for Douglas Ross? He has been given that answer on countless occasions.

As for his points about the Government not wishing to undergo scrutiny on this issue, it was looked at by a parliamentary committee, by Audit Scotland and by another parliamentary committee, and it has been the subject of a range of questions at question time. When Douglas Ross looks at all the papers, he will see that the contract arrangement demonstrates that the Government was taking action to deliver ferries for the island communities that require them, and we were taking decisions to protect employment on the lower Clyde. That is a record that this Government is determined to defend.

I suspect that the degree of agitation from Mr Ross today is an indication of the depth of the trouble that he is in. I do not think that anything that I say today will satisfy Mr Ross. He is going to doubt what I say and question my integrity. I am giving Parliament honest answers, which is more than can be said for the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, who Douglas Ross is prepared to support.

I sympathise entirely with the position that Leanne finds herself in. That is why the discussions between the rail trade unions and ScotRail that will take place this afternoon are so important in resolving the issue.

We must operate a safe railway and can do that only with fully and properly trained drivers. The network currently relies on rest day working by ScotRail’s train drivers, which is a practice that we are trying to eliminate. For properly understandable reasons, driver training was interrupted by Covid. More drivers are available now than have been in the past and we are trying to make progress on boosting driver numbers to resolve that issue.

We have to resolve the dispute, and that is what the discussions are about. I encourage ScotRail and the trade unions to reach a conclusion to that process so that individuals such as Leanne can have the rail service that they should have access to.

Mr Sarwar asked me questions about the capacity of our rail services, and I want to address those points.

If we look back at the situation in 2015, we see that there were 1,086 drivers on the ScotRail network. In December last year, it was 1,168, so there has been growth in the number of drivers. ScotRail would have trained a further 130 drivers had the process not be paused during the pandemic for what were, as I think we all accept, understandable reasons. There is now a pool of almost 900 pending driver applications, which gives us a supply of candidates coming into driver training that will allow us to expand the availability of driving personnel. Indeed, the ScotRail board gave authority for the recruitment of a further 135 drivers to move forward to the next stage.

I put those points on the record to address the capacity of the rail services and show the investment that has been made to ensure that we have adequate numbers of drivers in the future. We are in a period of difficulty just now because drivers are exercising their voluntary right not to undertake rest-day working. We are trying to resolve those issues by the negotiation that is taking place and, through ScotRail, we have put in place an amended timetable that gives more certainty about the availability of services rather than last-minute cancellations. The feedback that we got from Transport Focus showed that that was the most important issue to address for the travelling public so that they had certainty about the transport that was available.

We have assisted individuals with direct support through the carers allowance and other measures.

While we are doing all of that to support members of the public in the cost of living crisis that they face, what is the Labour Party doing? It is getting into bed with the Tory party in council administrations around the country. [Interruption.]

Mr O’Kane has raised serious issues. Negotiations are under way on both pay and safe staffing. The Government is engaged in that process as we speak. Within the significant constraints in which we are operating, we are working to ensure that we can address the issues that are of concern to members of the Royal College of Nursing.

I point out to Mr O’Kane that nursing and staffing levels in the national health service are higher than they were when we came to office, and are at record levels. We will continue to support nursing staff in the excellent and outstanding work that they do and on which we all depend.

Through Brexit, Covid and, now, the illegal war in Ukraine, we have seen how resilient the food sector is despite all the challenges that it has faced. Food supply continues to be strong. However, the Scottish Government takes seriously the food security of Scotland and, in response to the war in Ukraine, the Scottish Government, together with industry, has established a short-life food security and supply task force. The task force is currently considering a range of issues, and it will recommend actions that can be taken to strengthen food security and supply in Scotland. I expect the task force to report in due course.

The United Kingdom Government holds many of the levers to address the on-going pressures, but we will continue to use all the powers that we have available to support people in Scotland.