Chamber and committees

Ministers have met Pam Gosal several times to discuss her bill. I acknowledge that it has been published this morning. As always with members’ bills, the Government will engage on that question. We are always willing to explore any options to reduce crime and reoffending, particularly as they affect domestic abuse in our society. Ministers will be happy to engage on that question.

I acknowledge the significance of that area for access to Argyll and Bute. That point is regularly made to me by Jenni Minto, the local member for Argyll.

We have taken steps to ensure that we strengthen the alternative route through the old military road so that it is operational to provide connectivity and to avoid the lengthy diversion that is required should all of those accesses be unavailable.

The steps that are to be taken to ensure that the landslip shelter is put in place are under way. As I have told Jackie Baillie, the preparatory work is being undertaken. The Government will be happy to share details with the Parliament and local stakeholders. I am pretty sure that the Cabinet Secretary for Transport has met the Rest and Be Thankful interested parties to discuss the issue and the progress that can be made.

Obviously, I want to make sure that the types of services that Mr Choudhury has raised are supported around the country. Those are operational decisions for integration joint boards to make. They can make those decisions based only on the financial allocations that this Parliament makes, and Mr Choudhury was unable to support the allocations of funding that the Government made to cover such services.

We will certainly work with the integration joint boards, but Mr Choudhury cannot be absolved of his responsibility for failing to support the budget, which is delivering the investment that is necessary in health and social care. [Interruption.] The Labour Party members can moan at me all they want about the public finances—

To be clear—it is important that members of the public hear the facts—ministers will get their full MSP salary in the same way that every other member of the Scottish Parliament gets their full salary, apart from one person: me. I have decided—voluntarily—to maintain the freeze on my MSP pay as well as the freeze on my First Minister’s salary. To the best of my knowledge, I have not had an increase in my salary, in terms of the cash payment that has been made, as a consequence of the recent uplift. [Interruption.]

I will go and check that, and I will make the position clear this afternoon. I am very happy to do that. I have no worries about sharing that information. I have said to the public and to Parliament that I will not take an increase in my MSP salary and I will not take an increase in my ministerial pay; it will be frozen at 2008-09 levels. From my recollection, I do not think that any different pay has been put into my bank account. [Interruption.] I will go and check that, but I do not think that that is the case. [Interruption.]

I think that it says something about where the Conservative Party has reached that—[Interruption.]

They have absolutely nothing constructive to contribute to the debate. Let me say to Mr Findlay that, during my term in office as First Minister, we promised to provide 64,000 extra appointments by the end of March 2025. We did not do that. In fact, we delivered 105,500 extra appointments and procedures in that timescale, and we will deliver more in the forthcoming parliamentary year. I say to Mr Findlay—just so that he is not worried about it in the future—that this Government will deliver more in the course of the next 12 months. I will be very happy to answer parliamentary questions about that—not just before the election but after it, when I will remain as First Minister.

I welcome the contribution that Karen Adam makes on these issues. It is important to highlight the importance of deaf awareness week to increasing understanding of deaf culture and language. The Deputy First Minister met members of the community last week. The “British Sign Language National Plan 2023-2029” represents our on-going commitment to making Scotland the best place in the world for BSL users to live, work, visit and learn.

I am simply being straight with the Parliament about—[Interruption.]

That is at the very heart of the direct award; there is an objective of doing exactly that. One of the key obligations in the contract is the necessity of engaging with communities. There is a more significant role in the direct award for the ferries community board, which is able to articulate many of the issues that Mr Greene has put to me. The contract is structured to ensure that community voice and community aspiration are right at the heart of the delivery of ferry services. That will be a contractual obligation of CalMac.

I agree entirely with the analysis that the member is sharing with Parliament. Does he agree that there is a particular threat and challenge to the strength of those global institutions at the moment? There is a duty on everybody to reflect on the significant role that those institutions have played—although it has not been perfect—in avoiding conflict for many years. Does he agree that we all need to recognise the peril that many of those institutions now face?

I agree with Mr Kerr’s point. His example of his mother’s experience resonates with that of my mother-in-law, who was also removed from a tenement block that was bombed in Birmingham, in exactly the same era.

That is an illustration of how people were affected, but there is a substantial point in what Mr Kerr says. If I think back to when I started my parliamentary life, 28 years ago, I would say, anecdotally, that attendance at remembrance events was perhaps beginning to dwindle. Then, in the aftermath of conflict at the start of this century, I saw attendance at remembrance events grow. That is an indication that, sadly, there have been reminders of conflict and loss, which are matters of regret. However, they reinforce Mr Kerr’s point that we cannot, for a moment, allow ourselves to forget the suffering and the after-effects of conflict. I agree very much with Mr Kerr’s point.

Scotland owes a debt of gratitude to everybody who played a part in the efforts to defeat fascism. We live in an environment in which we still witness conflicts that have a profound effect on us all, brought to us by the images that we see, whether of the unbearable suffering in Gaza, which followed the terrorist atrocity by Hamas, or of the on-going suffering of the people of Ukraine in all that they wrestle with. In reflecting on those conflicts, Scotland remembers the sacrifices that were made by so many individuals in the efforts that were undertaken.

Europe day is celebrated tomorrow, when we commemorate the signing of the Schuman declaration and the beginning of what is now called the European Union—which, of course, happened only five short years after the end of world war two. Those steps were taken by France and Germany to ensure that war was

“not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible.”

We think back to the founding values of that dialogue to overcome conflict, yet, in continental Europe, we still have conflict in Ukraine.