Chamber and committees

It has not gone away, which is why I mentioned the drive towards net zero in my questions. However, we also have to see that the situation has changed fundamentally, not just in months and years but in recent weeks. The First Minister’s position does not seem to recognise the new reality: Russia’s war has changed the situation and we must accept that.

Scotland could deal a blow to Vladimir Putin by increasing domestic oil and gas production. We could increase that production now and end the need to import foreign oil and gas and could export more to reduce international reliance on Russian energy. Now is not the time to be ideological; now is the time to be practical and realistic. We have heard that from SNP voices—Fergus Ewing and Ian Blackford—so why do we not hear it from the First Minister?

It is questions about the leadership of the bank that are not being answered by the First Minister. She is telling us a lot about the bank and its importance to Scotland, Scotland’s economy and the Parliament but, like her ministers, she is refusing to give any detail on why the chief executive resigned. That is extremely unfortunate, as we come to the Parliament to get answers from the First Minister and her Government.

The timing of the matter is all very suspicious. The chief executive of the Scottish National Investment Bank resigned just days before the Scottish National Party launched its economic strategy, which is wafer thin, underwhelming and watered down by the Greens. It sums up a Government that is out of ideas and out of any vision for creating Scottish jobs and growing our economy. The plan is more of the same; it even recycles productivity clubs from Derek Mackay’s economic plan.

The strategy has been criticised by business leaders including Sir Tom Hunter, who described it as

“a long wish list with no magic wand to deliver it”.

Is it really a coincidence that the chief executive of the Scottish National Investment Bank has resigned instead of trying to deliver the new economic strategy?

I have to wonder, when the First Minister reads out those quotes, whether there were similar supportive quotes when Derek Mackay issued many of the same points in his economic plan or for previous economic plans. The fact is that the strategy is a retread of many of the issues and ideas that were put forward by the Scottish National Party before.

The first part of the First Minister’s answer was telling. She has confirmed to the Parliament that there was no direct link between the Government’s economic strategy launch and the resignation of the chief executive of the Scottish National Investment Bank. Therefore, she knows why the chief executive did resign—if she knows that the strategy launch is not the reason why she resigned. We are just asking questions because we need answers. [Interruption.] It may be uncomfortable, and the groans from SNP members may be because they do not want these questions to be asked, but it is the job of the Opposition in this country to raise serious concerns when they come in.

The First Minister mentioned the economy. For the 15 years that her Government has been in charge, Scotland’s economy has been stuck. The Scottish Government has created more problems than it has ever created jobs. We have seen one major failure after another, from Prestwick airport to Ferguson’s shipyard to Burntisland Fabrications Ltd. Now, for the new strategy, the SNP is literally diagnosing problems that it either created or made worse.

The First Minister cannot even rely on support from those on the benches behind her. In response to the launch of her Government’s economic strategy, Maggie Chapman said:

“the Scottish Greens believe the focus on growth is outdated.”

The focus on growth is outdated? Those are the same Greens that Nicola Sturgeon personally invited into her Government, a party whose policy is actually to make Scotland poorer. Is it any wonder that the First Minister’s Government’s economic plan is a shambles?

The First Minister has used the opportunity to explain how well the bank is doing in the vital work that it is undertaking. It is therefore important that the Parliament and the public in Scotland know why the chief executive resigned so abruptly earlier this week. We have heard from the First Minister that she was given advance warning of that last month, so I have to ask why we are not finding that out in the Parliament. This week, Scottish Conservative MSPs have repeatedly asked why the chief executive, Eilidh Mactaggart, resigned, but not once have we got an answer. The First Minister has refused to give an answer again today.

The Scottish National Investment Bank will eventually be in charge of £2 billion of public money, so we are entitled to know about its leadership. The secrecy and shutting down of scrutiny are completely unacceptable. How can the First Minister and her Government have nothing to say about why the person who was running that organisation has left?

The ministerial code states:

“Information should not be withheld from the public unless there are clear and lawful reasons for so doing.”

Are there clear legal reasons for hiding that information from the public, or will the First Minister now tell us why the chief executive stood down?

In discussing the issues that have not had prominence because of Covid and other matters, the business minister will know that the Scottish Conservatives have asked on a weekly basis for a statement about maternity services in Moray. I have also tried to get urgent questions on that. It was in the Scottish National Party’s manifesto to restore a full consultant-led maternity service in Moray. Can we have a statement or will the Scottish Government lead a debate on its response to the independent inquiry into and report on maternity services? We have now had a case of a Moray mum, Alexandra Naylor, giving birth in a lay-by. Can we have time in the chamber to debate this crucial issue so that no more Moray mums have to give birth, or fear giving birth, in a lay-by?

The Audit Scotland report lays bare that Scotland’s NHS is on an emergency footing. New evidence, which was submitted this morning to the Parliament’s COVID-19 Recovery Committee, spells out the true cost of this Government’s failure. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine has said that delayed accident and emergency admissions in Scotland led to

“over 500 excess deaths in 2021”.

Its evidence to the committee this morning states that those avoidable deaths are

“entirely attributable to the delay to admission these patients experienced.”

Five hundred lives were lost because the Government did not act early enough, despite receiving warning after warning that Scotland’s NHS is in crisis. If the Audit Scotland report is not a wake-up call for the First Minister and her Government, surely those deaths must be.

Does the First Minister have full confidence in her Government’s national health service recovery plan?

“Yes, I do”. Those three simple words from the First Minister confirm that everything that she has put forward in her NHS recovery plan has her backing. It is what she believes to be the way of getting our health service out of the struggles of the pandemic. However, it is a different view from that of Audit Scotland, which gave a damning verdict this morning on the Government’s plan to rebuild Scotland’s NHS. It states:

“There is not enough detail in the plan to determine whether ambitions can be achieved in the timescales set out.”

There is not enough detail in the plan that, moments ago, the First Minister said she is happy with. Will she accept that the recovery plan does not go far enough and urgently needs to be redrafted to address the serious concerns that have been highlighted?

I notice that the First Minister picked elements of the report that were positive for her Government but failed to address the substance of my question, which was about the lack of detail—“not enough detail” is in the report—and the lack of clarity on the timescales that need to be met to reach the ambitions that are set out in the plan.

The First Minister also mentioned that there are record numbers of people in the workforce, but the report makes it plain that the recovery plan will fail unless the Government recruits enough people with the right skills. It highlights vacancies being at record highs throughout the health service.

Scotland’s NHS staff have gone above and beyond throughout the pandemic to keep the public safe, but they are now stretched to their limit. Today, on top of the damning Audit Scotland publication, there are reports of junior doctors who are exhausted, burnt out and even leaving Scotland to work in health services elsewhere. How will the First Minister’s plan to cut down waiting times achieve the desired outcomes when staff are at breaking point or, worse, preparing to leave our NHS?

I confirm that the Scottish Conservatives will support the Government motion, because it is essential that we come together to condemn Russian aggression.

The news that we woke up to this morning—that Russian troops had entered Ukraine, that cruise missiles and military aircraft had attacked its major cities and that military and civilian lives had already been lost—can only be described as utterly devastating. It was utterly devastating for the people of Ukraine who find themselves the victims of an irredentist dictatorship and its warped view of the world, and utterly devastating for the rest of our continent, as the peace in Europe that we have all taken for granted was shattered by the most serious conflict for decades.

There must now be the swiftest and strongest response from the United Kingdom and every nation that values democracy and international law to make the action as costly as possible for Russia and especially for the regime that has ordered the invasion. That is why I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement that the United Kingdom will introduce a massive package of further economic sanctions to hobble the Russian economy. As our debate closes at 5 o’clock tonight, the Prime Minister will make a statement in the UK Parliament setting that out in more detail. We need a similar response from all our allies and partners, and I welcome those that have already been made.

Beyond that, the United Kingdom Government has provided substantial assistance to Ukraine throughout the crisis. That includes training for more than 21,000 members of its armed forces; a security assistance package to increase Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, including antitank missiles; £1.7 billion of financial support to help to develop and expand the Ukrainian navy; £88 million to support the Ukrainian economy and reduce its reliance on Russian gas; and £40 million to fight corruption and strengthen the Ukrainian judiciary.

However, it is clear that, despite those actions, Putin is determined to continue the conflict regardless of the cost to the people of Ukraine and, indeed, the people of Russia. Therefore, we must realise that we no longer live in a world in which we can assume rationality and reason in our international affairs. For years, we believed that conventional warfare between two sovereign countries would never happen again, because it was unthinkable that anyone could actually want war. However, as we have seen today, that belief in a rules-based international system, in which countries negotiate disputes rather than resort to conflict, is no longer an assumption that we can rely on. The world has become a more dangerous place than it was yesterday, and we view with trepidation what tomorrow might bring.

That is why it is important that we stand with our NATO allies, particularly those in eastern Europe. Countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are former parts of the Soviet Union that the Russian regime still considers part of its sphere of influence. In other countries, such as Poland and Romania, which border Ukraine, the citizens are now living in fear of an escalation of the conflict and further Russian aggression. The UK has already made major commitments to the security of those states, but it is important that we now redouble those efforts and reaffirm our article 5 commitment that an attack on any NATO member is an attack on all members.

Here in the UK, we must also make every effort to tackle Russian disinformation and close loopholes in our financial system that allow Russian oligarchs and state-owned companies to circumnavigate sanctions.

Other dictatorships across the world will be studying our response to the crisis and testing our resolve. We need to strengthen our military and take difficult decisions economically to isolate rogue states such as Russia, because if we and the rest of the democratic world do not defend our rules-based international system and do not champion liberal values, no one else will.

However, it is important today that we do not give any impression that we have written off the Ukrainian people. There can be no hint that we or the rest of the western world have abandoned them to Russian aggression, because at the heart of this conflict is the right of a democratic country to choose its destiny.

Although we were all shocked by the violence today, we must remember that that conflict has been going on for years. As the First Minister said, in 2014, after the Euromaidan protests removed a corrupt pro-Kremlin regime, Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists in the Donbas region in their war with Ukraine. That war alone has claimed 14,000 lives to date and devastated a region that was previously the industrial heartland of the country.

Now the Ukrainian people face the darkest day in their history for a generation, and we must continue to offer them our full and unwavering support in any way that we can as the conflict continues. That must mean continued supplies and equipment to help them to defend themselves and their country. It must also mean humanitarian aid and shelter for those people who are already fleeing or attempting to flee the cities. The 20,000 Ukrainian nationals who call the UK their home, and might have family and friends at risk because of this truly awful war, should know that they are also in all our thoughts and prayers.

When I woke this morning, like many, I felt shocked by what I was seeing on the news: horrific scenes of cruise missiles hitting apartment blocks, tanks rolling over border posts and thousands fleeing Kyiv in their cars. Those images, which belong in the past and should have been unbelievable in the 21st century, have become reality again today. I also felt a deep sadness that the peace in Europe, which was won by the blood of our grandparents and the generations that went before us, has broken once more. Our children will grow up in a less secure and safe world.

The people of Ukraine are having their freedom to choose their national destiny taken away by a foreign autocratic dictatorship. Many of them will lose their lives in the conflict or carry the physical and emotional scars with them for ever.

We on the Conservative benches join the rest of this Parliament and the UK Parliament in condemning in the strongest possible terms Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. It is important that the whole UK is united in the action that we will have to take in the coming days, weeks and months to stand up to this renewed era of aggressive expansionism, irredentism and great power politics, and absolutely ensure that liberalism, democracy and international law triumph once again. We stand with the people of Ukraine and we support the motion in the name of the First Minister.