Chamber and committees

The fact of the matter is that John Swinney and the SNP are not working, and Scots can see that. Our NHS is fighting for survival under John Swinney, and Scots are paying the price for his incompetence. Just this week, we heard about the case of Gerard McBride, who has waited 76 weeks for hip and knee surgery, despite crippling osteoarthritis. We heard from Alison, a mum, who told the BBC that she had to pay £4,500 for private cataract surgery. She said:

“I would have gone blind before the NHS would have seen me”.

We also heard from Elizabeth, who had to spend £18,000 of her own savings on a hip operation due to long waits in the NHS.

That is the price that Scots are paying for SNP failure. The situation is so bad that Dr Iain Kennedy of the British Medical Association has said that the NHS is “dying before our eyes”. Is that not a damning indictment of John Swinney and the SNP, who are destroying our NHS?

Presiding Officer, I join others in thanking you for your service and wishing you all the best for whatever comes next, although I fully expect that, over the next 10 months, you will continue to hold us to behaving with proper decorum in the Parliament and to tell us off from time to time.

Just this week, we have seen that house building has fallen to its lowest level since 2012; rates of sexual violence and domestic abuse are rising; delayed discharge is at a record high; almost one in three Scots is forced to go private to get healthcare; and cancer waiting times are the worst on record. Has the guy who claimed to be steadying the ship become the captain of the Titanic?

This is a failing First Minister in a failing SNP Government. John Swinney took personal responsibility for tackling the crisis in Scotland’s NHS, and now things are getting worse. Waiting lists are up, thousands more Scots are forced to go private and cancer waiting times are the worst that they have ever been. As the crisis in our NHS deepens, where was the health secretary this week? He was in Japan, lecturing on digital healthcare, yet he cannot even sort an NHS app at home.

While the health secretary was away, we got a rare moment of candour from the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health, Jenni Minto. When asked about the worst cancer waiting times on record, she said to STV:

“Are people losing their lives as a result of later diagnosis? Yes, they may well be.”

An SNP minister has admitted that SNP failure is costing lives. What does John Swinney say to the families who have lost a loved one too soon and are left to pick up the pieces?

Last week, John Swinney claimed that he became aware of the issues that Alexander Dennis is facing a few weeks ago and that he was doing what he could to help the company, but that is not true. Almost a year ago, John Swinney received a letter, directly from the company, that set out how his decision to buy buses from China instead of Scotland was putting the company and jobs at risk. He did nothing for the skilled workforce.

Last week, as usual, John Swinney tried to find someone else to blame for his own failure by talking about United Kingdom procurement laws. Those laws did not stop the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, buying Scottish buses, but, somehow, they stop the Scottish National Party Government doing so. Since that warning almost a year ago, how many buses has the SNP Government ordered from Scottish companies?

John Swinney did not answer the question. Since he received that letter almost a year ago, zero buses have been ordered from Alexander Dennis. He can try to waffle all he likes, but he cannot escape the fact that his Government has the powers and the resources to act but has failed to do so.

The Cabinet Office has clearly set out how the SNP Scottish Government could have helped to ensure that contracts go to Scottish manufacturers to support Scottish jobs. He could have applied social value criteria, which help domestic suppliers, or he could have considered a direct award. He did neither. Now that the UK Procurement Act 2023 is in place, the SNP Government can disregard bids from non-treaty suppliers, which include countries such as China. Did John Swinney not understand the law, or did he make the usual SNP attempt to pass the buck, find somebody else to blame and show no interest in actually doing his job?

The workforce does not need engagement from the Scottish Government; it needs contracts from the Scottish Government. Jobs come from contracts, and the reality is that zero buses have been commissioned since that letter was sent almost a year ago. The SNP needs to up its game rather than provide the usual waffle, because that just proves why Scots are sick of the SNP Government and its incompetence. After 18 years, it is out of ideas and out of time.

Last week, I told members that, a fortnight ago, an SNP MSP said that John Swinney had two weeks to come up with an idea to save his leadership. Let us look at what he has come up with. One in six Scots is on a national health service waiting list—[Interruption.]

—and deliver for Scots if we get rid of this tired and incompetent SNP Government?

—and John Swinney’s big plan is an app that was promised years ago and the merging of just two health quangos. Our schools are facing a behaviour crisis, and John Swinney’s big idea is to laminate bullet points and put them on a wall. Scots are angry at the Government’s failures and the SNP is back in crisis, and John Swinney’s big plan is to say, “Quick! Press the big panic independence button to try to save my skin.”

Is it not the case that we will only create jobs, save our NHS, improve our schools—[Interruption.]

Members will be deeply concerned about the planned job losses at Alexander Dennis in Larbert. Our thoughts are with the workforce.

Alexander Dennis is an industry leader in bus manufacturing, and that news was not inevitable—it is another result of Scottish National Party failure. Under the SNP, the Scottish Government is procuring more buses from China than it is from Scotland. The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, has bought almost four times as many buses from Alexander Dennis as the SNP Government has. That is shameful. Why does the SNP always put foreign businesses and manufacturers before Scotland’s workers?

That was a rather weak response from the First Minister. If the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, can find a way under the existing legislation to procure more buses than Scotland has, why can the SNP Government not procure more buses? It is another example of weak leadership from John Swinney. When Scotland needs buses, the SNP Government buys from China; when Scotland needs steel for bridges, it buys from China; and when we need ferries, it buys from Poland and Turkey. All that the SNP Government wants to do is to manufacture grievance and all that it offers is waste and incompetence. It has the powers and the money, but, as always, it wants to blame someone else. That is weak, failing leadership from John Swinney. Even his own MSPs are now openly rebelling against him, with senior figures saying that he has two weeks—[Interruption.] They groan in private; let them groan in public now. Senior figures say that he has two weeks to come up with a new idea—[Interruption.]