Chamber and committees

Good morning to the whole Accounts Commission panel. Ms Calder has just touched on the question that I wanted to ask, which is specifically on any analysis that you have done of local government workforce issues. You have already outlined the challenge that planning departments across the country are experiencing. My key question is this: what assessment did you make pre-pandemic, and what assessment have you made post-pandemic, of the workforce challenges that are facing local government?

I bid the cabinet secretary and her officials good morning. After what we have heard this morning, I feel that I should first declare that I am not a councillor.

It is now a decade since the Government accepted the Christie commission’s recommendations on a shift towards prevention. Notwithstanding Covid, can you give us some examples of where that shift has happened in practice?

Is it fair to say that there is a disconnect between the workforce that we need in local government and what our university and college sector is producing? I was struck by the comments that Ms Calder made on the 100 planners who are qualifying for both the public sector and the private sector in Scotland, with 35 per cent of the workforce being over 50. Is that something that you have considered with regard to what we will need in the future? It seems that, in the NHS, too, we have not got that national workforce planning right, even though we know that people are heading towards retirement.

My question relates to unsuitable accommodation orders. Charities such as Shelter Scotland and Crisis hear from people day in, day out about the poor conditions that they face in temporary accommodation such as bed and breakfasts and hotels. Problems range from a lack of space or basic cooking and cleaning facilities to intimidation by staff and arbitrary curfews that limit people’s opportunities to work and live normal lives. Is the Scottish Government planning to delay the full implementation of the Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Amendment (Coronavirus) Order 2020, which will leave more families living in hotel rooms?

Throughout the pandemic, I have been engaging with the soft play sector, and the quotes that I am reading out are specifically from that sector. Soft play operators have said that they need to see support from the Government. They need access to the data, too. They are desperately seeking that action from ministers, as they have throughout the pandemic. Before the protest outside Parliament, one soft play operator wrote to me saying:

“Unfortunately, our numbers have considerably diminished from our first time of protesting in September 2020, this is mainly due to the number of our peers whose businesses have been destroyed by the Scottish Government’s experiment on our industry, and others whose mental health has had such a battering that they freely admit to having been crushed and left with no fight or strength to face the Scottish Government.”

The Scottish Government is a minority Government but, by railroading the bill through Parliament, ministers have acted this week as though they have a majority.

The economic pain from the pandemic is still to be truly realised, and it is increasingly concerning that the decisions of the First Minister and SNP ministers could lead to further economic pain and job losses in Scotland. Perhaps after the summer recess, we will see an SNP-Green coalition announced, although, from what I read in today’s newspaper, I am not sure whether the Deputy First Minister is part of the SNP’s right wing that the Green members seem so concerned about working with.

Scottish Conservatives have tried to engage constructively with ministers throughout the process to see whether the Scottish Government and Deputy First Minister would see the errors of their ways. Perhaps after this afternoon, the Deputy First Minister might wish that he had listened. As he said earlier this week,

“you can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2021; c 14.]

Scottish Conservatives will oppose the bill at decision time.

I am not sure which meeting the member is talking about. For the past—[Interruption.]

I start by thanking the Parliament’s legislation team for the power of work that it has put in over the course of this week. As Mark Griffin stated, this is not how the Scottish Parliament should function. Members of the Scottish Parliament should have a full opportunity to consult and properly consider and amend bills; indeed, Mr Sweeney should have had the same right as Mr Swinney to influence the legislation. This week has just gone to demonstrate the key point that the Scottish Conservatives have made throughout the stages of the bill, which is that rushed legislation can often be bad legislation.

The bill leaves Scotland in a landing pattern. Its unprecedented powers will remain in SNP ministers’ hands for at least another three months, until the end of September, and potentially for a further six months beyond that, into 2022. It is critical that the Scottish Government and the Parliament focus 100 per cent on the economic recovery from the pandemic. Small businesses across the country are crying out for help. Yesterday, we saw employees from the travel and tourism sector demonstrate outside Parliament, and soft play businesses and their staff were also forced to protest outside Parliament recently.

The bill will continue to give ministers powers to further restrict and keep those businesses closed and, potentially, to shut them again at any point in future. The soft play sector in Scotland feels totally abandoned by SNP ministers. These popular local businesses have been legally unable to open for more than 470 days—some 15 months—while soft play centres across the rest of the United Kingdom have operated safely between lockdowns with no negative impact on public health. The soft play sector—with the same public demographic and material environment as trampoline parks, play cafes, playgroups and other children’s indoor activities, which have been open for months—cannot understand why it has been selected by the Scottish Government for such severe closure restrictions and a total lack of financial support.

As Pauline McNeill stated, many businesses have asked for but have never been provided with the evidence that SNP ministers state informs their decision making. One soft play operator said to me that

“There is no data to support the Scottish government action against soft play, no data to warrant”—

I will if I can get the time back.

It is, indeed, a deeply concerning statement. I will ask about two points. When were the Scottish ministers first made aware of this serious adverse event? Given that this is not the first time, sadly, that we have heard of errors in the cervical screening programme—last year, NHS National Services Scotland had to apologise for a two-month delay to screening invitation letters for around 1,500 patients due to what it referred to as a technical fault—and given the pressures that the NHS is currently under, how are ministers working to reassure women that the screening programme is fit for purpose? Will the minister look at undertaking a review of the programme?

I have no interests to declare.