Chamber and committees

Mr Brown makes a fair point. [Interruption.]

Members might make the noises that they are making about that, but parliamentary questions can be answered only by a minister. If a minister receives a question, they have to be able to answer it, or there will be parliamentary criticism of that minister. There are roles that have to be undertaken in good faith. What troubles me about so much of the debate is the constant implication that, somehow, individuals were not properly exercising their functions, which some of us take deadly seriously.

Liam Kerr is confused about the role of the Lord Advocate. The Lord Advocate is there to provide legal advice to ministers and, ultimately, ministers take the decisions. I am absolutely—

Not to my knowledge.

That is one of the practical issues that I had to handle in my role of sponsoring the inquiry. That was carried out and the nature of my role at that time was fully reported to Parliament.

I understand the seriousness of the issues that Mr Findlay has put to me. We have to address the rising prison population in a sustainable and effective way. The Government took measures that were explained fully to the Parliament, and they took place only once we had parliamentary consent to those steps.

Fundamentally, there is a difficulty about the rise in the prison population. This morning, the prison population is sitting at 8,322, which is a very high level. Ministers are concerned about the wellbeing of prison officer staff and prisoners as a consequence of the level of congestion in our prisons. We have to act, and the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs will give a statement to the Parliament this afternoon on those issues.

The issues that Mr Findlay raises are serious. It is not for me to question the sentencing policy that is independently decided by the judiciary. If I was to do that, I would be breaching my constitutional role as First Minister, in which I must respect—this was part of the oath of office that I took when I became First Minister—the distinction between my responsibilities as the leader of an executive Government, and the independent role of the judiciary. If I were to trespass into that area, I would fundamentally compromise the independence of the judiciary. That might be what Mr Findlay wants to do, but it is certainly not what this First Minister, who respects the rule of law and the oath of office that he took, is going to do.

Mr Findlay has suggested that, somehow, we are experiencing a lack of action on justice. Our prisons are absolutely bursting at the seams. That suggests to me—[Interruption.]

Things have been shouted at me, so let me clarify that point. Scotland imprisons more offenders per head of population than most other European countries. As a Government, we already invest heavily in alternatives to custody to make sure that we have a sustainable prison estate. Today, we must ensure that the prison officers who run our prisons and our prisoners, to whom we have legal obligations, are working and living in a safe and stable environment. That will underpin the Government’s actions.

The Government is putting in place the planning to do exactly that. That is the core duty of the Government. We are also putting in place resources—record investment of £19.5 billion in the national health service is delivering increases in staffing levels to ensure that there is the capacity to deliver the treatment that is required in the national health service.

We have to recognise that the Government can allocate only the resources that it has at its disposal, and we are allocating a record amount of funding. As Mr Sarwar knows, because we have rehearsed these points many times before, the climate of austerity that we have wrestled with for the past 14 years—[Interruption]

—from the Conservative Government places significant challenges on our resources, but we have exceeded the amount of money that was allocated through the Barnett formula to the health service because of the commitment of this Government.

Mr Sarwar thinks that it would help to follow his approach on taxation, which would reduce public expenditure in Scotland by £1.5 billion. That would not help the national health service one little bit. On funding, as the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Health and Social Care said when he was in opposition,

“All roads do lead back to Westminster”.

We will wait to find out what the budget tells us when the Parliament comes back after the October recess. Let us see whether the Labour Party breaks with austerity and whether Labour is prepared to invest, because what Mr Sarwar has put to me today is a demand for more investment, but we are not getting that from the Labour Government.

Christine Grahame puts a case to me in relation to the Borders, but I am aware of a number of cases in which questions have been raised and pauses announced around funding that we and local partnerships believed had been agreed under the city and growth deals that were negotiated in the past. Those funds are being paused essentially for review during the spending review period. I understand, from the information that has been made available to me, that some of that will not be clarified in the budget at the end of October but may have to wait for the spending review that comes in the spring. Obviously, that causes a significant delay to some of the projects that we would ideally wish to take forward and which communities are expecting.

I assure Christine Grahame that those issues are the subject of active discussion and dialogue with the UK Government, and we will continue to engage in that.

Mr Fraser will not be surprised to know that I take the issue deadly seriously, as a parent of a school pupil in Perth and Kinross who stands to be affected and as the representative of 64,000 people in my constituency whose families stand to be affected.

Let me be absolutely clear with Parliament: I think that there is absolutely no justification for singling out and targeting my constituents just because I am the First Minister of Scotland. The Government is not even the employer here. A pay deal has been offered by local government—by the employers—which has been accepted by two out of the three trade unions. The two requests that were made for an offer to be made that was in excess of, or comparable to, the offer made to local government workers in England and Wales were fulfilled by the local government offer. A second test was that there had to be progress towards £15 an hour and the protection of low-paid workers, and that was fulfilled by the response of local authorities. For that offer to be accepted by two unions and rejected by a third, and for my constituents to be singled out for this treatment just because their MSP happens to be the First Minister, is absolutely unacceptable.

I hope that there can be some dialogue with the local authority employers to bring the situation to a conclusion. The Government has put additional money into the financing of the offer. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government has had to come to the Parliament to make £500 million of spending cuts to make the investment, and there is no more Government money available. Members of Parliament know the limitations of the public finances.

I appeal for the issue to be resolved speedily through dialogue between Unison and the local authority employers, where the proper dialogue should be undertaken, and for my constituents’ education not to be disrupted any further just because their MSP happens to be the First Minister.