Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 1, 2020

Official Report 872KB pdf

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Programme for Government 2020-21

The next item of business is a statement by the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, on the Scottish Government’s programme for government 2020-21. The First Minister will take questions at the end of her statement.

14:26  

I will start with a brief update on today’s Covid statistics. An additional 154 positive cases were confirmed yesterday. That represents 1.2 per cent of the people newly tested and takes our total number of cases to 20,632. The full health board breakdown is available on the Scottish Government website. However, I draw attention to the fact that 66 of today’s cases are in Greater Glasgow and Clyde. The situation there is causing us some concern. Further analysis is under way, and I will chair a meeting of the resilience committee later this afternoon to consider what action may be necessary to prevent further spread. I will provide a further update after that.

I can also confirm that a total of 264 patients are currently in hospital with Covid, which is six more than yesterday. Six people are in intensive care, which is one more than yesterday. In the past 24 hours, no deaths were registered of patients who had tested positive for Covid. The number of deaths under that measurement remains 2,494.

Those statistics remind us that the times that we are living through are far from normal. The pandemic continues to have a profound impact on our health and wellbeing, business and the economy and, indeed, our whole way of life. That is true in Scotland and across the globe.

It follows then that this is not a normal, business-as-usual programme for government. Today’s programme is clear that suppressing Covid is our most immediate priority and will remain so for some time. That is essential for the protection of health and life and for economic and social recovery. Put simply, if Covid runs rampant again, our economy will sustain even deeper, longer lasting damage. This programme faces up to that inescapable fact.

However, we will not simply hunker down and wait for the storm to pass—we cannot afford to do that. We must end our contribution to climate change, improve biodiversity, invest in our national infrastructure, make our public services fit for the future, harness the economic and social opportunities of new technology, make homelessness history and lift children out of poverty. Even amid the uncertainties of a global pandemic, this is a time to be ambitious, to use the disruption of Covid to rethink how we do things and to make sure that our immediate response to the virus works, not just in the short term, but also helps to shape a stronger, greener, fairer future.

We must treat the Covid challenge not as a brake on our ambitions, but as an accelerant. After all, if our response to the virus has taught us anything, it is that, when we set our minds to it, we can achieve progress more quickly than we thought possible.

The roll-out of a digital consulting system in the national health service had proceeded at a snail’s pace for years, but it was completed in less than a month after Covid struck. A new hospital was created in a matter of weeks, armies of volunteers and public sector workers made sure that the vulnerable had access to food and medicines, rough sleepers were given places to stay and unprecedented support for business was distributed quickly and effectively.

None of us would have chosen to live through a global pandemic. We will always grieve the lives that have been lost, and we will never forget our separation from loved ones. However, we are also being reminded every day of the resilience of our human spirit, the power of human compassion and the ingenuity of human intellect. We must harness all of that for the future.

The programme for government sets out plans for a stronger, more resilient and more sustainable economy, with a laser focus on creating new, good and green jobs. It guarantees opportunities for our young people, and it refuses to accept that their generation will carry the economic scars of Covid into adulthood. It strengthens and reforms public services, including our national health service, and it takes the first step on the road to a national care service.

The programme for government promotes equality and wellbeing, with decisive action on child poverty. At its heart is the new game-changing Scottish child payment. It also starts to reimagine how we can live our lives in ways and in places that prioritise health and wellbeing, recognising the benefits of that not just to individuals but to the economy.

Let me turn to the detail and, first, to the necessity of suppressing and, I hope, eliminating Covid. Although nothing can be ruled out, we want to do everything possible to keep Covid under control without another national lockdown. That means building and supporting public health infrastructure that can break the chains of transmission and keep outbreaks contained.

Working with the United Kingdom, we have already expanded testing capacity, and we will continue to do so. We will also make access to testing more accessible. Yesterday, the Scottish Ambulance Service took over the running of mobile test units, and it will continue to extend its reach. I thank the Army for its work in establishing and running the units so far.

By the end of October, 11 new walk-in testing centres will open across Scotland. Over the course of the winter, that number will rise to 22. We will ensure that decisions on who gets tested, and for what purposes, are informed by up-to-date scientific and clinical advice.

We will continue to strengthen the test and protect system. Built from the bottom up, the system harnesses the skill of Scotland’s well-established health protection teams. It is working extremely well so far, and I am very grateful to everyone involved.

However, I can announce today a significant enhancement to the test and protect system. Later this month, we will launch protect Scotland—our new proximity tracing app—which will provide an additional means of notifying and giving advice if you have been exposed to someone who has tested positive, even if you do not know that person and they do not know you. More information will be given at the time of the app’s launch—as well as important assurances about privacy and confidentiality—but I encourage everyone to download and use the app as soon as it becomes available.

Stopping the virus in its tracks, wherever possible, is our priority. However, we must be prepared for any second wave, if it happens. Our NHS is already restarting procedures that had to be paused, but it is also maintaining hospital and intensive care unit capacity to deal with Covid, if necessary. That includes keeping the NHS Louisa Jordan open through winter. We are replenishing stocks and strengthening supply chains to ensure that we have personal protective equipment for health and care workers, and I am pleased to say that much of that PPE is now made here in Scotland.

We are continuing to learn lessons to protect care home residents, which includes providing routine testing of care home workers. We are reducing the potential concurrent winter risk of flu by extending eligibility for the flu vaccine to everyone over the age of 55, social care workers and those who live with shielded people.

Keeping Covid under control is, of course, the responsibility of Government first and foremost, but we cannot do that alone; it requires a continued collective effort. We will succeed only if we all play our part. That is why I ask again that everyone across Scotland abides by the crucial FACTS rules. Please do the right thing and help to keep our country safe.

The health crisis has caused an economic crisis on a scale that none of us have experienced before. We have an immediate obligation to protect jobs and help businesses survive. We have already made available more than £2.3 billion of emergency funding for businesses, and we will continue to provide as much support as we can. We also welcome the scale of the UK Government’s economic interventions. However, the looming withdrawal of the furlough scheme risks a tsunami of redundancies. I am therefore calling again on the UK to follow the lead of countries such as France and Germany and extend the job retention scheme for a further 12 months—especially for the sectors hardest hit by Covid and with the longest road to recovery. Withdrawing that support while otherwise viable businesses are still unable to operate normally—in full and certain knowledge of the impact that that will have—would be unconscionable. It must not be allowed to happen.

We will take all possible action to support the economy in the short term, but this programme also lays foundations for the future. It establishes a national mission to create new high-quality green jobs. That mission is underpinned by significant investment in our national infrastructure, in securing the economic benefits of the green transition and in fully realising the potential of the tech revolution. I will set out some of those investments and supporting initiatives shortly.

Delivering on that mission, and responding to the immediate employment challenges of Covid, requires a massive focus on upskilling and reskilling the workforce. I can confirm that central to that, and to our programme, is a youth guarantee: a new partnership with Scotland’s employers, backed by £60 million of Government investment, to guarantee everyone aged 16 to 24 a job, a place in education or a place in training. The Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture will publish the implementation plan for the youth guarantee tomorrow, but be in no doubt now that the guarantee signals our absolute determination that youth unemployment will not be a legacy of the pandemic. We are also earmarking £10 million to help employers recruit and retain apprentices. That will include incentives to take on apprentices who have been made redundant, and I can announce that, this autumn, we will launch the national transition training fund; backed by initial funding of £25 million, it will help up to 10,000 people of all ages retrain for jobs in growth sectors. We will also double to £20 million our flexible workforce development fund, which helps employers address skills gaps, and we will establish a green jobs fund—initially worth £100 million—which I will say more about shortly.

Supporting workers to upskill and retrain is essential, but Covid has brought about fundamental shifts in how people work. Greater flexibility over working patterns is important for health and wellbeing, and many businesses see benefits to that as well. At present, our advice is of course to work from home if possible. However, we expect that when more people do return to offices, some will want to go on working from home, at least for part of the week. We will therefore set up a new centre for workplace transformation to look at how and where work takes place, and what support employees and businesses need to make that work.

The programme for government includes a range of measures to protect key sectors that have been badly affected by the pandemic, for example, tourism, the creative industries and our cultural sector—all crucial to this country’s future. But investment in infrastructure is at the core of the programme. We will increase our investment in infrastructure year on year, so that by the end of the next Parliamentary session it will be £1.5 billion higher than last year. This month we will publish our new national infrastructure investment plan—informed by the Infrastructure Commission for Scotland—which will set out the framework for £32 billion of infrastructure investment over the next five years.

Part of that investment will be in digital infrastructure. The past six months have shown that access to the online world is a modern necessity every bit as essential as access to electricity. It is through technology that many of us have continued to work, learn, access life’s essentials and stay in touch with loved ones.

Our £600 million R100 programme will make superfast broadband available to every home and business across the country. Scotland still has the only Government in the UK to have guaranteed 100 per cent access to superfast broadband. Work has already started on delivering the central and south of Scotland parts of that programme.

We have also established a voucher scheme—the most generous anywhere in the UK—to ensure that everyone in Scotland has access to superfast broadband by the end of 2021, even if the R100 installation is not scheduled to reach them until later or if they are in the hardest to reach areas.

However, better infrastructure alone will not secure the benefits of digital technology. We must also eliminate digital exclusion. During lockdown, by working with the third sector, councils and Scotland’s tech industry, we established Connecting Scotland. That scheme has provided iPads and Chromebooks with internet connections to people on low incomes. It helps tackle the causes and consequences of poverty.

The initial priority was to make provision for people shielding or at high risk of severe illness. The programme is now helping care leavers and low-income households with children. It connects families, improves employment opportunities and provides better access to health care and education.

We intend to significantly expand that programme in the coming year. I can announce that, by the end of 2021, Connecting Scotland will provide an electronic device, unlimited data, and two years of digital support and training to 50,000 people who would otherwise be without the digital access that the rest of us take for granted. This is a massive step and will help us to end the digital divide once and for all.

We have previously expressed our ambition for Scotland not simply to be a nation of users of digital technologies but to lead the way in the design and development of new technology. In recent years we have enhanced our international reputation as a centre for technology and data. However, last week’s review by Mark Logan, Skyscanner’s former chief operating officer, highlighted areas for urgent improvement. His recommendations—if implemented—will be truly transformational. This Government accepts that challenge. I confirm that we intend to implement those recommendations in full.

We will establish a network of technology incubators to mentor and train tech start-ups. We will create an ecosystem fund to help those start-ups to succeed. We will provide re-skilling opportunities for people whose employment has been affected by Covid, so that they can find new jobs in our digital industries. And we will work directly with the technology sector to deliver the Logan review’s recommendations on education, entrepreneurship and investment.

Scotland already has significant economic and academic strengths in technology and data. Building on those is crucial for our future prosperity and success. This programme is a clear signal of our determination to expand these strengths, to address our weaknesses and to fully seize the opportunities of the digital age.

Our ambitions for a digital Scotland must go hand in hand with our ambitions for a greener Scotland. In two months’ time, Scotland was due to host the 26th conference of the parties, or COP26. That gathering has been postponed, but the global challenge is more pressing than ever. Covid is, rightly, the most immediate priority that is addressed in the programme for government, but we must not forget that the global climate emergency is intensifying and that it, too, requires our urgent attention and action. In the year ahead, we will make further progress towards Scotland becoming, by 2045 at the latest, a net zero emitter, thus ending for ever our contribution to climate change.

Last year, we set out the first phase of our green new deal, based on the principle that decarbonising Scotland is both a moral obligation and a significant economic and social opportunity. It committed an additional £2 billion of investment over the next session of Parliament to help achieve the ambitions that are set out in our climate change plan.

Today, we are setting out details of how £1.6 billion of that will be invested: by supporting green jobs, reprioritising road space for public transport use, planting trees and transforming how we heat our buildings. Our overall investment in decarbonising heat—which will in itself be more than £1.5 billion over the next session of Parliament—will help us to improve energy efficiency, to reduce fuel poverty and to ensure that, in just over 20 years, heating in Scotland will no longer be a source of greenhouse gas emissions.

That transformation, driven by our responsibility to the planet, will also create and support many jobs across the country. As indicated earlier, we will also create a £100 million green jobs fund. Half of that will be dedicated to helping businesses and organisations grow to significantly increase employment in low-carbon sectors; the other half will help businesses take advantage of public and private investment in the low-carbon economy.

We will also help other industries become green. A £62 million energy transition fund will help oil and gas businesses diversify, which is of course especially important for the north-east of Scotland. In addition, I can confirm that we will invest a further £60 million to support the industrial and manufacturing sectors’ transition to net zero.

One of Scotland’s biggest industrial employers and one of its largest emitters is, of course, Grangemouth. I can therefore confirm that we will establish a Grangemouth future industry board to support a just transition at that cluster, promoting economic activity while advancing the move to a low-carbon future. We will also do much more to support the circular economy and new energy technologies such as carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen. In addition, we will significantly increase peatland restoration, investing at least £250 million over the next decade to help meet our emissions targets, and support jobs in rural and remote parts of our country areas.

I can also announce that we will launch later this month the first round of our green investment portfolio, marketing more than £1 billion of low-carbon projects to investors across the world, and, of course, the Scottish National Investment Bank will shortly open its doors for business. Capitalised to the tune of £2 billion over the next decade, its primary mission will be to drive the transition to a net zero economy. The bank will be a key source of patient finance in the years ahead; it will support the new technologies, projects and infrastructure that will put Scotland at the forefront of the transition to net zero. I can confirm that the bank is already in discussions about a range of projects for early investment, including supporting supply chains for zero-emission public transport. The Scottish National Investment Bank, which in my view is the most important economic development of this session of Parliament, will be key to creating the low-carbon, high-technology and highly skilled economy that we want and are determined to build in Scotland.

The Government will continue to do all that we can to help individuals and businesses adapt, survive and succeed. Covid has presented us with significant challenges, but those challenges are being compounded completely unnecessarily by Brexit. The UK Government’s decision not to seek an extension to the transition period, despite the economic crisis caused by Covid, will cause avoidable harm to many Scottish businesses. It is an act of self-sabotage that we simply do not understand but must nevertheless respond to.

At the same time, we also face restrictions on our ability to protect key sectors as a result of the UK’s plans to create a so-called internal market that undermines this Parliament and risks lowering standards. Nevertheless, Brexit demands that we work in partnership with business and the third and public sectors to make sure that Scotland remains an attractive location for inward investment. I can therefore announce today that we will publish before the end of this year, as an accompaniment to our export strategy, a new inward investment plan, with the express aim of creating 100,000 high-quality jobs over the next decade.

Brexit and the way in which it is being implemented immeasurably strengthen the case for Scotland becoming an independent country with the ability to shape our own destiny and contribute positively to Europe and the world. If this was a programme for government in an independent Scotland, it would not have to contemplate the damage of Brexit at all. Instead, it could set out even more far-reaching plans for an immediate extension of the job retention scheme, not a plea for another Government to do so; the greater use of borrowing powers to further stimulate our economy; transformation of our national grid to support faster development of renewables; a migration system that welcomes talent at all levels and supports people to make Scotland their home; and a universal basic income and a social security system geared wholly, not just partially, to lifting households out of poverty.

That is why we will publish, before the end of this session of Parliament, a draft bill setting out the proposed terms and timing of an independence referendum as well as the proposed question that people will be asked in that referendum. Then, at next year’s election, we will make the case for Scotland to become an independent country, and we will seek a clear endorsement of Scotland’s right to choose our own future.

The rainbows that appeared in windows across Scotland earlier this year were an expression of hope in the face of adversity. They were also a tribute to the dedication of our health and care workers. We owe them—each and every one of them—an enormous debt of gratitude, and that must be reflected in how we value and reward them. We are now in the final year of the three-year national health service agenda for change pay deal. We are already working with trade unions to agree the negotiation of a new pay award for 2021-22. As part of that, we are considering options to recognise the enormous contribution of staff during the pandemic. We also acknowledge the impact of Covid on the mental health of many front-line workers, and we will establish a mental health network, including a workforce specialist service, to provide confidential assessment and treatment for those working in the NHS.

Covid has reminded us how important it is to ensure the safety of patients. We will continue to support the work of the Scottish patient safety programme and, in response to the Baroness Cumberlege review, which was commissioned as a result of concern about mesh implants, I can announce that we will also establish a patient safety commissioner. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport will set out more details next week.

Our immediate priority is of course the remobilisation of the NHS, but we will also reform access to services in light of the Covid experience, and we will expand the use of technology. Work to restart services that were paused because of Covid and to tackle the backlog of procedures is already under way. We are also expanding elective capacity through the national elective centre programme. The first of our new centres for elective surgery will open next month at the Golden Jubilee hospital. Construction will start shortly on the Highland centre; next year, it will start on new centres in Grampian and Livingston and on the second phase of the Golden Jubilee centre. A new national cancer recovery plan will be published in the autumn to drive forward recovery and improvement of those vital services, and we will prioritise prompt detection of cancers through early diagnostic centres.

Crucially, in the months ahead, we will build on the rapid expansion of digital access to care that was achieved in response to Covid. Early on in the pandemic, we quickly upscaled the use of the Near Me video consultation service. In the week before that service started, just over 300 video consultations took place across the NHS. In the last week of June, the number was 17,000. Patient satisfaction with the service was high. That shows us how quickly progress can be made. While we recognise that video consultations will not be appropriate for every patient or every situation, I can confirm that we intend to move to a position where Near Me is the default option for patient consultations. We also intend to develop the use of near me in social care.

Accident and emergency services were transformed during Covid, and we will learn from that experience. A new 24/7 service operated by NHS 24 will help patients who are not in need of immediate emergency care to access clinical assessments by phone or online before attending an A and E department.

We will support the pharmacy first initiative, which allows common ailments to be treated by community pharmacists. That is part of a wider set of reforms to community health services. Our aim is to ensure that multidisciplinary teams, in a network of community treatment and care facilities, just like the one that I visited yesterday at Sighthill, provide as much care and treatment as possible, in communities and close to home.

Covid has undoubtedly highlighted and exacerbated health inequalities, so we will promote healthier and more active lifestyles for all. We will invest £500 million over the next five years to support active travel. That will help local authorities to develop new walkways, reallocate road space and increase access to bikes. We will also implement low-emission zones in our four biggest cities to improve air quality. The first of those zones has already been established in Glasgow, and the others will be operational by early 2022.

We will work to encourage healthier eating, and we will take forward plans to tackle obesity and support healthy weight. We will continue to tackle the harms that are caused by alcohol and tobacco.

We will deliver on the key recommendations of the drug deaths task force, for example by tackling the stigma that too often prevents people from seeking treatment and by funding vital research into drug deaths in Scotland.

A central commitment in last year’s programme for government was major reform and expansion of mental health services. This year’s programme continues that journey. Again, we will build on the approaches that were adopted during the pandemic. During lockdown, the reach of the distress brief intervention programme was expanded. That provides support for people in distress who contact emergency services but who do not need emergency clinical help. Evaluations have shown that such an approach saves lives. I can therefore confirm that we will expand the distress brief interventions programme across every part of Scotland. We will also work with health boards to retain the mental health assessment centres that were established during the pandemic, and we will deliver the major expansion of mental health support for children and young people that was announced in last year’s programme for government.

So far, I have focused largely on the national health service, but the pandemic has reminded us of the vital importance of social care services, and of the extraordinary professionalism, dedication and compassion of those who work in that sector. However, it has also underlined the need for improvement and reform. I can therefore announce today the immediate establishment of a comprehensive independent review of adult social care. The review will seek the views of those with direct experience of adult social care and will make recommendations for immediate improvements. However, more fundamentally, it will examine and set out options for the creation of a national care service. The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport will set out more detail on that in her statement later today. However, I can confirm that we will ask the review to produce its first report by January, so that we can quickly start to act on its findings. The quality of adult social care matters deeply to us all. This is a moment to be bold and to build a service fit for the future. The national health service was born out of the tragedy of the second world war. Let us resolve that, out of the Covid crisis, we will build the lasting and positive legacy of a high-quality, national care service.

The past few months have reminded us once again that quality public services and a strong economy must go together. We will continue to invest in the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and in Police Scotland. I am extremely grateful to both those emergency services for the work that they have done to help the country through the Covid crisis.

In the wider justice system, we will work with courts, the legal profession and victims’ organisations to tackle the backlog of cases that Covid has caused, and we will continue to promote and expand the use of community interventions as more effective alternatives to short-term prison sentences.

We will also progress plans to modernise the prison estate, and will prioritise replacements for HMP Barlinnie and HMP Inverness. By the end of 2022, we will have delivered a new national women’s prison and two community custody units for women, in Glasgow and Dundee, to ensure that the needs of women in our criminal justice system can be better addressed.

In this session of Parliament, we will also introduce a new domestic abuse bill that will legislate for emergency protection orders to better safeguard those who are at immediate risk of domestic abuse. That bill is one of four that we will introduce before the end of this parliamentary session. The others will be a budget bill, a bill relating to medicine and dentistry education at the University of St Andrews, and a truly landmark bill to incorporate into Scots law the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, about which I will say more later.

Seven additional bills are already before the Parliament and will continue their progress in the weeks ahead. They include: the Defamation and Malicious Publication (Scotland) Bill; the Redress for Survivors (Historical Child Abuse in Care) (Scotland) Bill; the Heat Networks (Scotland) Bill; the Forensic Medical Services (Victims of Sexual Offences) (Scotland) Bill; and the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill. On the last of those, I know that some concerns have been raised. I give an assurance that we will listen carefully to them: the freedoms of speech and of expression are fundamental in any democracy.

I turn now to housing. We will continue to make ending homelessness a national priority, and we will provide more support for new housing. We will update the “Ending Homelessness Together: High Level Action Plan”, having learned from the approaches that were taken during the pandemic, and we will significantly scale up the housing first programme.

We will also take action to reduce the risk of people becoming homeless because of Covid-related financial pressures. In the initial stages of the pandemic, we legislated to stop people being evicted; we will extend the protection against eviction for rent arrears to March next year. However, I can announce today that we will also establish a £10 million tenant hardship loan fund to support people who are struggling to pay their rent because of the pandemic.

We will also continue to invest in new social and affordable housing. Investment in housing is also an investment in our economy, in jobs and in our communities. Before lockdown, we were on track to deliver by the end of the parliamentary session 50,000 new affordable homes, 35,000 of them for social rent. We are working with the construction sector to catch up and to hit that target as soon as possible.

That has been a £3 billion investment; we intend to expand on it. We have already committed a further £300 million of housing investment in the next financial year. That will secure much-needed homes and will support about 10,000 jobs. Later this year, we will publish a new 20-year vision for good-quality zero-carbon housing with access to community services, transport links and green space.

For social housing, we will set new standards on carbon emissions, digital infrastructure, access to outdoor space and room for home working. That vision will be based on extensive consultation. The social renewal advisory board—whose recommendations have been influential in several areas of the programme—will help to ensure that the vision reflects our experiences of the pandemic. It will also be backed by substantial new funding for the remainder of the next parliamentary session, which will be confirmed in the capital spending review later in the year.

The past few months have, because we have been able to travel less, reminded us just how important our local communities are. The concept of the 20-minute neighbourhood has attracted growing global interest in recent years. The basic idea is that people in any part of a town or city should be able to find shops, green space, public services and leisure facilities—and, ideally, work—within 20 minutes’ walk of a good affordable home. We intend to work with local authorities and others to turn that vision into a reality through our policies on transport, regeneration, housing and the environment. To support that, we will invest £275 million in community-led regeneration and town-centre revitalisation.

The pandemic has reinforced what we already knew: the quality of homes and communities impact directly on our health, happiness and wellbeing, and those impacts are unequal. With our plans in the programme for government to invest in quality housing and better neighbourhoods, we aim to transform that for the better.

As our support for housing is, the social safety net is an investment in our collective wellbeing. During Covid, we have expanded the Scottish welfare fund, increased payments for carers and provided additional support for emergency food supplies. Social Security Scotland now delivers eight benefits to people across the country. Four of those benefits are new and do not exist elsewhere in the UK, and the other four are more generous than the UK benefits that they replaced.

In November, our new social security system will reach its most significant milestone, when it starts to take applications for the new Scottish child payment. The first payments will be in the pockets of eligible families in February next year. Despite the six-month disruption by Covid, that is just two months later than was initially planned. The Scottish child payment will give eligible families £10 a week for each child, initially for children under the age of six, and then, when it is fully implemented, for children up to the age of 16. Together with support that is available through the best start grant, the Scottish child payment will be truly game changing, in our fight against child poverty.

During the winter, we will also start to make payments through the child winter heating assistance programme, which will provide £200 per child for families of severely disabled children.

Social security is part of the social contract between Government and citizen; it is an expression of our solidarity as a society. It is more important than ever to support, strengthen and invest in it: this Government will do exactly that.

The child payment—like the baby box—symbolises our determination to ensure that every child has the best start in life. This generation of children and young people has experienced a year that is unlike anything that we could have anticipated. We have a duty to ensure that the impact of the past few months does not disadvantage them in the years to come.

One of the most important pledges of this Parliament was our commitment to ensure 1,140 hours of free childcare a year for all three and four-year-olds, and for eligible two-year-olds. That commitment was on course to be delivered from August. Inevitably, Covid has delayed it, but we remain committed to delivering it in full. A firm date for completion will be agreed between the Scottish Government and local authorities before the end of this year.

In schools, closing the attainment gap remains our defining aim, but we must not underestimate the impact that the closure of schools will have had on that gap. We have already confirmed pupil equity funding of £130 million for the next financial year, and we have allocated an additional £80 million this year for recruitment of additional teachers and support staff, to help young people to catch up in their education.

We have already established a review of the awarding of Scottish Qualifications Authority qualifications, and we will ensure broader consideration of our approach to assessments and qualifications in the future.

I can also confirm that we will fund additional university places to ensure that no young person loses out on higher education as a result of the issues with this year’s qualifications. Having met our interim target, we will continue to work towards the objective of closing the gap in access to university. Our aim is that, by 2030, at least 20 per cent of university entrants will be from our 20 per cent most-deprived communities. In the more immediate term, we will work with universities and colleges to help them to deal with the substantial impact of Covid.

I also want today to renew my personal promise to children and young people with experience of care, and to recommit to full implementation of the independent care review’s recommendations. Fiona Duncan, who chaired the review, has already been appointed to lead an oversight board to hold us to account.

We will also respond to the Black Lives Matter movement and the global resistance to continued racial injustice. This programme sets out how, on health, the economy and in communities, we can better recognise and respond to the challenges that are faced by minority communities. We will also work to educate young people on our past, and on the need to challenge racial injustice in the present. We will sponsor an independent expert group to make recommendations on how to raise awareness of Scotland’s role in colonialism, slavery and historical injustice, and how that manifests itself in society today.

Finally, I can confirm that we will shortly introduce one of the most ambitious pieces of legislation in the 20-year history of devolution. We will, to the maximum extent that is possible, fully and directly incorporate into Scots law the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. That will mean that public authorities, including the Government, will be required by law to act in ways that are compatible with the convention’s requirements to recognise, respect and be accountable for the rights of children in what we do. The implications of the bill will be profound, far reaching and long lasting. It is a commitment that exemplifies the importance that the Government attaches to the rights, opportunities and future of all our young people.

That view to the future is the note that I want to end on, but first let me reflect on the past. It is less than three weeks since we commemorated the 75th anniversary of victory over Japan day and the end of world war two. One of the many impressive things about that world war two generation is the way in which, even in desperate times, they resolved to build a better world. They created institutions, from our national health service to the United Nations, that have stood the test of time and serve us to this day.

The crisis that we face today is different and in many ways less extreme, but it is without doubt the biggest challenge that our generation has faced. It would be easy to focus on nothing but Covid, and of course the effort to suppress it will occupy us for some time yet. However, we should also seize this moment to imagine and start to build a better future.

That is why the programme, as well as tackling Covid, renews our commitment to end, once and for all, Scotland’s contribution to climate change. It acknowledges the social solidarity of recent months and aspires to our becoming a more equal country. It will invest in the skills and technologies that people will need for the future. It lays plans for homes and neighbourhoods that we hope can be cherished for generations. It commits to the vision of a national care service to match the post-war national health service. Above all, it seeks to ensure that Covid will not be the defining experience of the current generation of young people, and aims instead to improve their education, enhance their life chances and guarantee their human rights.

This is a programme for government that necessarily prepares us for what might well be a difficult winter, but it also encourages us to lift our eyes, to find hope in our hearts and to plan for brighter days ahead. I commend it to the chamber.

The First Minister will now take questions on her statement.

I thank the First Minister for the advance sight of her statement. She has called the action to protect, support and create jobs our “national mission”, and I agree. To that end, I welcome a number of measures that have been referenced today, including increased investment in digital infrastructure and further support for youth training.

Such moves are welcome, but they remain insufficient. The First Minister will know that 99.3 per cent of all Scotland’s businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises. She will know that they support more than a million jobs and comprise more than half of all private sector employment, so it is disappointing that, although her statement today ran to more than 6,000 words, she missed out two: small business. Small businesses are vital to what happens next because, when global shocks happen, it is the efforts of individuals that pull countries out of the mire.

In the three years following the 2008 crash, 88 per cent of the people who went from unemployment to employment did so through an SME or through self-employment, so getting help for small business right is a fundamental part of getting our national response right.

Scotland’s small businesses have some specific practical asks. The first is for reassurance. While we all hope that we do not have to experience another Scotland-wide lockdown, the recent experience of Aberdeen shows how disruptive to small businesses local lockdowns are.

Yesterday, we proposed the creation of a hardship fund for firms that are hit by such restrictions. Such a specialised fund would provide reassurance to small businesses that help was guaranteed if they were told to close their doors. Yesterday, the First Minister said that she would consider all good ideas, so will she commit now to considering that one and give small businesses that reassurance?

I thank Ruth Davidson for her comments. I absolutely understand the importance of small businesses to our economy and, indeed, to our society and our wellbeing as a country. That is why I am so very proud to be the leader of the Government that, in a previous session of Parliament, introduced the small business bonus, such is the importance of the small business community to everything that we do in our country.

So much of what the programme for government covers will help businesses of all shapes and sizes, including small and medium-sized enterprises, whether through the on-going emergency support or, in the longer term, our commitments to digital infrastructure, to helping businesses to fill the skills gaps that they have and to retraining the workforce to ensure that small businesses have access to a skilled population in the future.

We will consider all suggestions, but I make the point that I will always make when pleas for more funding are made, for understandable reasons. The budget of the Scottish Government is largely finite, because we do not have access to the borrowing powers that the UK Government has access to. If we want more money to flow through into help for businesses, the UK Government must make such decisions or give us the borrowing powers to make them ourselves.

In relation to Aberdeen, we made money available for a hardship fund there, and we will continue to look at every way in which we can support businesses. Of course, the biggest and most important thing that we can do to support business is to keep Covid suppressed so that we do not have further restrictions on businesses’ ability to trade, and to take early action when there are increases in the transmission of the virus so that we keep our economy and, of course, our schools open.

The biggest threat that faces businesses of all sizes in the immediate term is the withdrawal of the furlough scheme, and I hope that members across the chamber will join me in calling on the UK Government not to withdraw that support prematurely so that the benefit of the support that we can give, building on that foundation, is not taken away by the disaster that will befall businesses if the furlough scheme is withdrawn, as is currently planned.

The First Minister asks where the money might come from. I point out that £6.5 billion in Barnett consequentials has been transferred from the UK Government to her Government. That is not allocated.

Yesterday, I walked down George Street in my constituency of Edinburgh Central, which is one of the major retail destinations of our country, and I was shocked at the number of businesses that have simply not opened their doors. I know that that will be replicated—or worse—in the shopping streets in towns across the country. In fact, the Federation of Small Businesses Scotland says that more than a third of firms that have been forced to close have no idea whether they will ever be able to reopen.

However, FSB Scotland also says that there are measures that the Scottish Government can take to help more of them to do so. A simple one is to put back the business rates revaluation, as small businesses cannot afford to pay rates that are based on pre-recession values when they have less money coming through their doors. England and Wales have already agreed to push their revaluation back to April of next year. Will the First Minister follow suit?

Yes, that is under consideration. I think that the Cabinet Secretary for Finance will shortly make clear our intentions on the next revaluation date. I understand that, unlike England and Wales, we are also looking at the tone date—we want to ensure that there is as small a gap between that and the revaluation as possible, because we understand the importance of that to businesses—but I will let the finance secretary set out the details of that when she is ready to do so.

I hope that this will be taken in the spirit in which it is intended: every year, we have a budgetary process that all parties have the opportunity to contribute to; some take that opportunity and some do not. This year is different. We must constantly look at how the money that we have at our disposal is allocated to help businesses such as the ones that Ruth Davidson is talking about, but no party should come to this chamber and make the claim that we have large reserves of unallocated money in our budget.

The sum that Ruth Davidson talked about is money that is allocated right now. It is helping our public services and businesses and supporting a range of priorities and initiatives across the country.

Unless Ruth Davidson or others are going to argue for increased borrowing powers or other sources of revenue, then, if they want us to spend money on one priority, they also have to be prepared to say where we should take that money from. I will listen to suggestions that are made, as we have tried to respond to suggestions throughout the crisis so far.

I am coming to the First Minister with practical and constructive measures that have been advanced and supported by Scotland’s largest business membership organisations. She asked me for the envelope and I told her it.

As the First Minister will know, many small businesses have needed to adapt their premises in order to meet the new social distancing and other public health guidelines that have been put in operation. If they had not done that, they would not have been allowed to reopen or trade again. Now, however, they fear that they are going to be hit twice over, once to foot the bill for those adaptations and again if the adaptations that they have made lead to higher property valuations, which decide how much they go on to pay in rates.

It would be a travesty if Scotland’s small businesses, which have already been hammered by months of enforced closure and a continuing lack of footfall, were to be further penalised through their rates bills just for doing the right thing. Will the First Minister give them a categorical assurance today that she will take the necessary steps to protect them from higher rates bills caused by public health adaptations?

If Ruth Davidson had listened carefully to the first part of my previous answer, she would probably have heard the direction of travel in terms of the date of revaluation. One of the reasons for looking to potentially delay revaluation is the fall-off in business activity and the other factors that businesses have been dealing with.

We do not want, and I do not want, businesses that have already been hit by Covid and the changes that have been necessitated by that to be hit unfairly in addition to that. We will take steps in the way that we consider is best designed to protect businesses from the kind of effect that is being pointed out. It is right and proper for the finance secretary to do that work in detail and to announce it properly to this Parliament, but I think that anybody who is listening to me right now will get a fairly clear hint of the direction of travel.

One of the best and biggest ways to help people back into work is to sort out childcare. I think that it is sadly typical of this Government today that its commitment to childcare is delayed by its commitment to a referendum bill, which is front and centre.

The First Minister paused her pledge of 1,140 hours of free nursery care in July due to a shutdown of building sites that were adding the extra provision, but extending nursery buildings was not the only problem. According to Audit Scotland in March, those nurseries were still behind in recruiting staff, with thousands of places unfilled. The First Minister says that she will update working parents in December on when they can expect to see 1,140 hours finally being delivered, but will she commit today to using the pause to recruit and support enough nursery nurses through training to actually make it happen?

Ruth Davidson may be interested to know—or to learn—that there are many local authorities right now that are already delivering 1,140 hours. I saw today, I think, if I read this correctly, Shetland making that announcement, and there have been others over the past period.

The commitment to the policy is well on track. The Audit Scotland report back in March, before Covid, outlined the challenges with a project of this scale and ambition, and we should remember that it is a project of a scale and ambition that no other Government across the rest of the UK has committed to.

Yes, there are challenges, but that programme was on track and it will be completed. Many councils are already delivering it, and those that are having to get back on track will set out their revised plans as soon as possible. This will be one of the flagship commitments and achievements of this session of Parliament, and, when it happens in full, I look forward to Ruth Davidson congratulating the Government and local authorities on that achievement.

I thank the First Minister for advance sight of her statement. I share her concern that the public health crisis remains a major risk. It is a matter of concern and it must continue to be our top priority above all others.

There are many aspects of today’s programme that I welcome. We have long advocated for a Scottish jobs guarantee scheme, and we hope that when the implementation plan is announced tomorrow, it is based on the real living wage. We welcome the commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and we have been calling for radical reform of our care system and the creation of a national care service for the past 10 years.

At the weekend, the First Minister said, of this year’s programme for government:

“We have an opportunity, not simply to go back to how things were, but to address many of the deep-seated challenges our country faces.”

I whole-heartedly agree.

One of those deep-seated challenges is the challenge of unemployment and the crisis of jobs. The First Minister has today promised a plan for new green jobs. We have heard these promises before, repeatedly. Meanwhile, multimillion-pound contracts have gone overseas and less than a third of the jobs promised have materialised. How do we know that this time, we will not simply go back to how things were, with broken promises, empty yards and offshored jobs? What is going to be different this time?

Of course, as Richard Leonard will know, we continue to work hard on an on-going basis to make sure that many of the economic benefits of vast renewables projects, for example, are enjoyed here in Scotland. That is an uphill struggle, and part of the reason for that is that so many of the levers, such as those on contract for difference, are still reserved to Westminster. If Richard Leonard wants to will the ends of something, he must also will the means, and I look forward to having his support in those arguments in the future.

If what Richard Leonard has been saying in recent weeks and months is sincere, as I expect that it will be, I suspect that there is an awful lot in this programme for government that he will welcome and want to get behind, so that collectively, across the Parliament, we can deliver on it.

The implementation plans for the youth guarantee, which is so important in making sure that youth unemployment is not a legacy of this crisis, will, as I said, be published tomorrow. Sandy Begbie, who has my gratitude for the work that he has done on that, has, I believe, had discussions with Opposition leaders to share the thinking on the guarantee. Generally, the Government’s commitment to the living wage is extremely strong. We have taken a number of steps to advance that, and I am sure that an ambition around the living wage will be central to the youth guarantee implementation plan.

We have an opportunity out of crisis to rethink how we do things, but that is not to say that all of this will be easy. My responsibility is to make sure that we are using all the levers and resources at our disposal. The elephant in the room will always be that some of the levers, particularly those for economic interventions, are not in our hands. There will always be a real flaw in Richard Leonard’s argument if he is still in the position of arguing that those levers and powers, and so much of the resources, should be in the hands of a Conservative Government at Westminster rather than in the hands of this Parliament. I hope that I will be able to change his mind on that in the future.

I am reminded that, back in 2010, in its “Low Carbon Economic Strategy”, the Scottish Government promised 130,000 jobs in renewables and low-carbon technologies by 2020, and, in the “2020 Routemap for Renewable Energy in Scotland”, it promised 40,000 jobs in renewables by 2020. The list goes on.

Another deep-seated challenge that the country faces is the crisis of rising poverty, homelessness and the affordability of housing. Over the past 10 years, rents in the private rented sector have soared year on year. They went up by around 5 per cent in the city of Glasgow in the last year alone.

Back in June, Scottish National Party MSPs teamed up with the Tories to block Scottish Labour’s fair rents bill, which was proposed by Pauline McNeill, from even being debated in this Parliament. There is still time. Although the tenant hardship loan fund is welcome, it is not enough. It is treating the symptoms and not the causes. The Scottish Government can still legislate now to tackle the fundamental issue of affordable rents by adopting the fair rents bill as part of the programme for government. Will the First Minister make that commitment, or is she content to simply go back to how things were?

That characterisation is completely wrong. We have legislated to reform the private rented sector, delivering and implementing many protections for tenants that were not there previously. That is a very welcome step forward. I have made it very clear that we are open to further progress on that, whether that is around rent controls or further protections for tenants.

That is why, in the face of the crisis, we have protected people against eviction. We are extending that, and a £10 million fund to help those who are struggling to pay their rent is a really good, positive step forward, which I hope that Richard Leonard will welcome.

We are also, of course, the Government that has invested record sums in building new social affordable housing. That is fundamentally the way in which we are addressing the housing crisis. I remember one of Richard Leonard’s colleagues, Iain Gray—I am not sure that he is in the chamber right now—saying when he was the leader of the Scottish Labour Party that the problem with Scottish Labour is that it passed world-leading legislation but just forgot to build the houses to implement it. We have got on with building the houses, and we will continue with that investment.

We have limited legislative time between now and the election. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child bill is a flagship piece of legislation. I had discussions not long ago with the Greens, which partly led to today’s announcement on the tenant hardship loan fund. We cannot always find extra time for legislation, but we are open to considering other things that we can do to try to deliver the protections that we want.

On poverty, the Government is introducing the child payment to lift children out of poverty. The previous Labour Administration did not do that, and no other Government across the UK is doing that. We are putting money where our mouth is when it comes to lifting children out of poverty. I hope that a Labour leader would welcome that.

The last time Labour was in power, child poverty halved, and I am not sure that I got a yes or a no to the question that I put. Therefore, I am not quite sure whether families who live in the private rented sector will take any crumb of comfort from what the First Minister has just said.

Over the past six months, no part of our society has been more tragically hit by Covid-19 than our care homes. It is clear that our care system is not fit for purpose, so I welcome the announcement of a review of the care sector. I hope that that review will include a review of the financing of the care sector, because it has been underresourced for too long. However, the deep-seated challenge that we face means that additional funding alone will not fix the broken system.

The First Minister has said for some time that she sympathises with my calls for a national care service. Today’s announcement of a review is a welcome signal of intent, but there was a review of residential care in 2014 that led to barely any changes at all.

Time is running out. This is the final year of this parliamentary session. Will the First Minister take the opportunity to confirm today not only that she intends to create a national care service but when she will do so? Will she confirm that she will act immediately to level up the terms and conditions of the extraordinary workforce that delivers care, which she has spoken of?

In her statement, the First Minister drew a comparison with our national health service. Can she confirm that, as with our national health service, the profit motive will be removed from the care of our oldest and most vulnerable citizens, because we cannot be content simply to go back to how things were in the care sector?

Before I move on to a national care service, I will go back to the point about tenants. Richard Leonard used the expression “crumb of comfort”. It is of more help and comfort in the immediate term, in the face of a crisis, to have a £10 million fund than to wait six months for legislation. We are acting now to protect tenants, and we will, of course, continue to consider other suggestions for the longer term.

Richard Leonard did something on the Scottish child payment, and he is perhaps about to do it on a national care service. He spends weeks calling for something and, as soon as we commit to it, instead of welcoming that, he decides to grump and groan about it.

We will get on with the detail of that. I want to see a national care service. The vision of that should inspire and excite all of us. However, the difference between calling for something in opposition and delivering it in government is that, in government, we have to work out the detail, get it right, and implement it properly. That is why we will establish the review immediately and call on it to give an initial report by January so that we can begin to act on its recommendations. I hope that all the Opposition parties in the chamber will be listened to and that soundings will be taken from all of them in that review.

We can use this moment to continue to disagree on the details of that or to come together. I am not sure that all of us will be able to come together on these things, but those of us who broadly agree can come together and try to seize the moment as a chance for genuine transformational change. I hope that Richard Leonard will be in the latter camp.

The context of this programme for government is unprecedented. In the midst of a global pandemic, with the prospect of a no-deal Brexit fast approaching, and Tory moves to undermine devolution, it is no surprise that the opportunity to choose our own future is appealing to ever more people. However, the work to build a new Scotland has to start now.

There is much to welcome in the programme for government, not least the youth guarantee and a recognition of the need for a national care service, though I question the urgency and scale of announced actions. I welcome the green jobs fund, which we have long called for, but will the First Minister tell us how many jobs the fund aims to create, how many households will be lifted out of fuel poverty as a result, and whether the £100 million will be spent this year?

I warmly welcome the establishment of a transition board for Grangemouth, but will a similar board be established for the communities around the Mossmorran gas plant and the Hunterston nuclear plant, and wherever we seek to support communities in the long-overdue just transition to a greener Scotland?

We will absolutely look at replicating the approach at Grangemouth elsewhere. We established the just transition commission to guide us in making sure that, as we make the move to a net zero society, we are not leaving behind those communities that have been dependent on industries for a long time, and are not repeating the mistakes that we made in such industrial transformations of the past.

We will set out more details of the various funds that I have announced today in the budgetary process. I think that I said today that, in terms of decarbonising heat, which will help to not only create jobs but reduce fuel poverty, the commitment to funding over the course of the next parliamentary session is not £100 million but £1.5 billion. It is a massive investment that will help us to tackle climate change and provide the foundation for the green jobs recovery that I have been talking about.

I would love to do more on all those things. Right now, I would love to do what Governments across the world are doing, which is to use borrowing powers at a time when borrowing can be accessed to kick-start the recoveries and earn more wealth and revenue along the way. We have to operate within the financial constraints that exist, but we are maximising our operation as much as possible, while still crucially arguing for us to have the powers and access to resources that other independent countries the world over are able to take for granted.

There are few more important policies than those that would guarantee a secure roof over our heads. We welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has finally recognised that tenants urgently need support, but £10 million of loans is inadequate. The proposed loan fund represents £30 per tenant and is, of course, debt. As we recover from Covid, Scotland faces a tidal wave of evictions. The First Minister said in her statement that

“we legislated to stop people being evicted”.

However, we did not. We legislated for a six-month delay. It is a fact that, currently, eviction orders are being granted by the tribunal as a result of notices to leave that were issued before emergency legislation was passed. Those who have been issued with notices to leave since 7 April will be subject to evictions proceedings in the tribunal over winter. The Greens have repeatedly called for real tenant protections, including a rent freeze and a stronger ban on evictions resulting from arrears accrued due to the pandemic. Will the First Minister reconsider the case for such measures, and at least prevent landlords from being allowed to evict tenants due to arrears when the tenant is in receipt of loan funds?

I hope that Alison Johnstone’s colleagues will tell her that I have signalled an open-mindedness to discuss all those matters. I will not go into the detail of our discussions, but there are some practical issues around some of what Alison Johnstone has raised, which we will try our best to work through. For example, there is a legal difficulty with retrospectively applying legislation to evictions in the pre-Covid period. When the notice period is added to the time that it takes tribunals to consider cases, we have ensured an effective ban on evictions during the Covid period throughout this winter.

I listened very carefully to Alison Johnstone’s colleagues about the tenant hardship fund, and we have recognised that there is a need to help people who have short-term financial difficulties due to Covid. Again, that was a specific request by her colleagues. I was asked to look at the Welsh Government’s scheme; we have done that, and we have come forward with today’s proposal.

I have also undertaken to consider how to make people who would benefit from the current legislative protections more aware of them, because people may not know right now that, if they challenge an eviction notice, they have that protection over the winter.

I cannot say that every single ask that has been made of me is deliverable, practically or financially, but I am absolutely determined—as, I think, we have demonstrated today—to listen to good ideas and, where we can, to respond to that positively, as we have done through the hardship fund. That is the spirit in which I hope we can have our discussions on housing, on homelessness and on every other aspect of the programme.

I wish to pay a sincere tribute to professionals and volunteers who have worked to serve their communities during the pandemic.

It has never been a problem for the First Minister to read out a long to-do list. The problem is that the got-done list is always so much shorter. For the third year in a row, I ask about child mental health. Two years ago, 208 children were waiting for more than a year. Last year, that number trebled, which the First Minister described as “unacceptable”. It was the worst that it had ever been—and that was before the virus hit. It has now doubled again, and there is no new plan in the programme for government. Young people deserve the best in mental health support. Why does the Government have no new recovery plan for child mental health?

We have invested record sums in general mental health and in child and adolescent mental health. We are employing record numbers of professionals in mental health. We are employing school counsellors across our school estate in order to be more preventative.

In the programme for government last year, we set out a plan of action for reforming how we deliver child and adolescent mental health services in order to rely less on specialist services—making sure that they are there for people who need specialist care but having a much more preventative plan of action and approach, for example, in the national wellbeing service.

Inevitably, there has been disruption from Covid, as so much of our work has suffered. We are getting it back on track. It would have been wrong to announce a new programme today. We want to deliver the commitments that we set out, and we are getting on with doing that. There is additional support for general mental health through distress brief interventions, which make mental health services more accessible. We will continue to take forward those priorities.

I say to the First Minister that the numbers have doubled but there is nothing new today in the child mental health arena.

What we have is yet another plan on independence. We were told that that was on pause and that everything was about the pandemic, but—and they are at it again—independence got the loudest applause of the afternoon. That tells you all about their priorities. Lives and livelihoods are still under threat. That deserves our undivided attention.

Childcare should already be on the got-done list. At a time when we should be investing in the future of our young people, the Government has diverted funds elsewhere and has delayed the 1,140 hours provision for up to a year. It is certainly not, as the First Minister described, well on track. There is no strong economic recovery without strong childcare, and that is missing from the statement.

Young people deserve better on mental health and better on childcare. Is the First Minister really satisfied?

Willie Rennie is just wrong on childcare. We are delivering a commitment on—[Interruption.] I welcome back Mike Rumbles; I am glad that he has been able briefly to join us.

On childcare, we are delivering something that goes way beyond any other part of the UK. We will deliver the same amount of childcare for three and four-year-olds, and for eligible two-year-olds, as children spend in primary school. That was on track to be delivered in August. Many local authorities are already delivering it.

Most reasonable people will understand that delivery was disrupted because construction could not happen, and because councils had to deflect some of their attention—as the Scottish Government did—towards dealing with the immediate issues around Covid. The policy has been fully funded, and not a single penny of that money has been taken away from local authorities. We will now get on and catch up with that, and deliver on the commitment in full. When we do so—just as I said to Ruth Davidson—I hope that Willie Rennie will stand up in Parliament and congratulate the Government, because delivering on childcare is not something that the Liberal Democrats took the opportunity to do in all the years that they were in coalition with the Conservatives.

The question is no longer whether we should establish a national care service but how we should do so. How will the comprehensive review of adult health and social care, in short order, take the first vital steps to a national service that is delivered locally, working to national standards and plans, stripping out profiteering at the extent of care and ensuring that the voices of those who use and work in the service are at its heart?

I thank Angela Constance for her question, and for her leadership on this issue. Not only has she set out a vision for a national care service; she has engaged with the complexities and the detail around that.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport will make a statement later today, after this statement, in which she will set out more details of the review. We want the review to give a swift and critical analysis of the options that are open to us to deliver reform in the care sector, and to look at the practical and detailed issues that require to be considered and resolved in moving to a national care service. Those issues are many and varied; they include staffing, integration with the health service and charging for care. All those issues have to be looked at and considered, but we have an opportunity to get it right and to do so at pace.

I will leave the health secretary to set out the details. There will be a chair of the review, which will be supported by an advisory panel and, crucially, the voices of those who have direct experience of care will be at its centre.

The First Minister said in her statement that she would publish a new inward investment plan by the end of this year. However, this time last year, she made exactly the same promise in the programme for government for 2019-20, and no plan has yet been published. Back in January, the then Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Economy and Fair Work, Derek Mackay, promised that the plan would be published by this summer, and it has still not appeared. When exactly will the plan appear? How can we have confidence that this time it will actually happen?

I hate to be the one to remind Murdo Fraser that, over the past six months, we have been living through a global pandemic. The minister who will publish the inward investment plan has, over those six months, been leading our work to ensure that we have a Scottish supply chain for the personal protective equipment that our healthcare workers need, and he has my grateful appreciation for his excellent work in that regard. He will publish the inward investment plan, which will take a strategic approach to the markets and sectors that we want to target in order to maximise inward investment.

Inward investment has been a success story for Scotland over the past six or seven years, during which we have outperformed every other part of the United Kingdom apart from London and the south-east. For a representative of a party that is trying to shut Scotland off from all its international markets right now to stand up and lecture this Government on inward investment takes some nerve.

The First Minister touched on the ways in which the pandemic has affected our treasured health and social care staff, in particular the toll that it will be taking on their mental health. Can she expand on how the funding that the Scottish Government will provide to health boards will support staff?

We—all of us, I am sure, not just me—are deeply grateful to all our healthcare staff for their work, commitment and professionalism over the past few months.

Health boards have put in place a range of wellbeing resources at a local level, and at the national level we have established the national wellbeing hub. Any member of staff can find the hub at www.promis.scot.

The programme for government sets out the commitment to establish a mental health network to enhance existing mental healthcare provision, which will include additional funding to health boards to enhance their capacity to provide psychological interventions to those whose mental health has been severely affected. Further, as I said earlier, we will establish a workforce specialist service to provide confidential assessment and treatment for mental ill health to those who need it.

I am genuinely astonished that the First Minister is spending any of her time in the remaining days of this session of Parliament on an independence referendum when the priorities of this Parliament and the country are focused on the NHS and economic recovery.

Let me focus on economic recovery. The infrastructure investment plan and capital spending review to create the conditions for a fairer and greener economy were due to be published last year. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

We all agree that infrastructure investment is critical to economic recovery, so I ask the First Minister: how much of the capital investment limit of £4.7 billion this year will be spent in-year? Are there opportunities to accelerate that? Why is the capital spending review delayed until later in the year when it should sit alongside and inform the infrastructure investment plan?

We will maximise all the resources at our disposal and accelerate funding where we can, and the Cabinet Secretary for Finance will keep Parliament updated on that.

This is the flaw in Labour’s argument. It rightly and understandably wants us to do things always at our own hand, but we are dependent on budgetary decisions being taken at Westminster to know what our funding envelope is. The UK budget was delayed last year, and that had implications for our budget, and we do not yet know when those decisions will be taken by the UK Government this year. That is a statement of fact. If Labour does not want it to be like that, I suspect that it should be arguing, along with us, for this Parliament to have full economic and financial powers. However, we will set out all that when we can see the funding that is available to us.

That is one of the many reasons why I want us, as a country, to stop being always at the mercy of Westminster Governments and, as is the case right now, a Conservative Westminster Government that does not have our interests at heart. I will argue that case proudly and it is one that is gathering support every day. However, I do not think that anybody across the country, even my worst critic, which might be Jackie Baillie or somebody else in this chamber—who knows?—could doubt my commitment to steering this country through the crisis that we face right now, and that will continue to be my priority every single day that we are in this crisis.

I declare an interest as an honorary vice-president at Energy Action Scotland. The First Minister has said that we have to seize this moment to build a greener economy, and I welcome the investment in decarbonising heat and improving energy efficiency. Will she outline how that builds on the energy efficiency and fuel poverty commitments that were made in last year’s programme for government?

Last year, we committed to scaling up that work, and that included an additional £30 million of capital spend. The commitments in this programme mean that, by the end of the next session of Parliament, the total capital spend on decarbonising heat will reach £1.6 billion. That groundbreaking investment will help to remove poor energy efficiency as one of the main drivers of fuel poverty, while providing significant multiyear investment to help us to develop our supply chains and support the skills that are needed there.

It will also secure jobs. My apologies to Alison Johnstone—I should have given her this figure earlier—but our initial estimate is that at least 5,000 jobs will have been directly supported by the end of this programme for investment, with many more expected in the wider supply chain and economy.

Today, the Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills confirmed that more than 30,000 school pupils have been tested for Covid, in what remains a worrying time for them and their teachers. He also ruled out providing schools with home test kits, which could easily be used to help Scotland’s most vulnerable pupils to get back into the classroom quickly, when it is safe for them to do so. Demand is rising, so we must meet that demand. The First Minister said today in her statement that this Government wants testing to be more accessible. Does that not sound like one way to do just that?

We will continue to keep all the decisions around testing under review. The way in which young people are accessing testing is working; it is the right way. I do not yet know the figure for the totality of last week but, between last week and the previous week, there was a 300 per cent increase in the number of young people being tested. Despite that increase, only two more cases tested positive. Young people have access to testing and it is important that we ensure that that continues to be the case. We consider these things on a daily basis because, when demand rises as we go into the winter, we will need to make sure that our capacity rises and that the system retains the required flexibility. We will always consider whether there are different options for testing everybody, particularly young people. They are not always easy tests to do, particularly for children, so if we expect schools to administer the tests, that will also be a feature.

Understandably, there has been anxiety as schools have gone back—for teachers, parents and, no doubt, kids. It is important for people to be vigilant; if their child has any of the symptoms of Covid, they should get them tested. However, the national clinical director wrote an open letter yesterday to reassure parents that, if their child has symptoms of a cold but not the symptoms of Covid, there is no need to get them tested. I repeat the statistic that we published last week: of the 17,500 young people who were tested in the previous week, 49 tested positive. Although I am not saying to any parent not to be vigilant, that helps to put into context the situation in schools and communities across the country.

There is clear evidence that, in many areas of clinical need—most startlingly in the treatment of cardiovascular conditions—women do not receive the same quality of treatment as men. Last year’s programme for government set out a commitment to deliver a women’s health plan, with the women’s health group established in February of this year. How will the Scottish Government build on that commitment to tackling women’s health inequalities?

This programme for government reaffirms our commitment to tackling women’s health inequalities and it confirms that we are continuing work to develop the women’s health plan. The work of the women’s health group, which is the expert group that oversees the development and implementation of the plan, has already started. It has met twice—in February and August—and has agreed a direction for the plan, including timescales for delivery. It has developed and published a lived experience survey that will inform the next phases of the plan and ensure that women’s voices and experiences are central to its development. The women’s health plan will focus on ensuring that women have access to specialist menopause services, improved support and speedy diagnosis for endometriosis, and improved access to abortion and contraception services.

There is a lot in the programme for government that we campaigned for and therefore welcome, so we will work constructively with ministers to ensure that those commitments are delivered rapidly, because the people of Scotland need action, not further reflection.

That is especially true for Scotland’s drugs crisis. I heard a commitment to further research by the drug deaths task force, which is important, but nothing specific on residential rehab. Will the First Minister make a commitment to expanding access to residential rehab? Will she meet with the charity Faces and Voices of Recovery UK, which presented the Government with 23 recommendations on action that could be taken now?

I am always happy to meet groups and individuals and to consider the recommendations that they put forward. Joe FitzPatrick, who leads that work for the Government, would also be happy to meet with the charity, if he has not done so already. We will take forward the recommendations of the drug deaths task force and we will continue to set out the detail of the work that we do there.

I made two specific references today, which are both important. One is the finding that, although it is not the only factor, stigma often prevents people from coming forward for treatment and support, and we need to tackle that. However, there is also a need to invest in research to further understand the causes and drivers of the drug deaths crisis in Scotland. We will take forward those recommendations. As on all matters—but particularly on a matter as serious as this one—we will always be willing to listen to those with front-line lived experience.

I am pleased that the First Minister has reconfirmed that ending homelessness continues to be a national priority. Does she agree that the recent statistics on homelessness in Scotland showed some concerning trends? For instance, in the Stirling area, there is an increase of 127—or 27 per cent—in the number of homeless households. I am aware that, by extending the eviction ban in Scotland, the Scottish Government has helped to prevent people from becoming homeless as a result of the pandemic. What further measures in the programme for government will help to address the challenge of homelessness? What other work is the Government doing to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping?

I find the most recent homelessness statistics a cause for concern. This point does not detract from that, but apart from a short period that overlapped with the Covid crisis, the most recent statistics largely pre-date it. We need to learn from the different approaches that have been taken to ensure that rough sleepers have somewhere to stay during the crisis. I often reflect on the ways in which we made much quicker progress in a time of crisis than we ever have managed to do before. We need to keep that pace of delivery going.

We are going to update the ending homelessness together action plan. We also intend to massively scale up housing first from the initial pathfinder areas in which it has been running. We are currently funding a six-month pilot for homeless people who are living in hotel accommodation and who had previously been sleeping rough. The work is to get them into settled accommodation in the private rented sector. That pilot project is intended to inform the development of an all-Scotland plan on that basis.

There are lots of challenges but also lots of good work being done to ensure that we deal systematically with the causes of rough sleeping and homelessness and end them. That should continue to be a national priority. We want to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place, which is why some of the work that we have done on evictions and the fund that I announced today are also important.

Even before the pandemic struck, the Scottish Government was failing to get hospital waiting times under control. The current crisis has plainly exacerbated the situation. Last week, we learned that 71,000 patients have been waiting more than 12 weeks for hospital treatment. Today, the First Minister referred to various remobilisation initiatives that will occur in the year ahead, but what action is her Government taking right now so that people waiting for vital treatment right now can be seen as soon as it is safe and practicable to do so?

That is what the remobilisation work is all about—ensuring that health boards are bringing services back on stream. In some respects, they are having to do that in a different way; for example, in accident and emergency services, the need for physical distancing changes the way in which those services are delivered.

We have always been clear with health boards, right through the crisis, that they should continue to see people who need urgent treatment. At many points during the crisis, the chief medical officer and others were explicit that people should come forward for treatment. A process is now in place to deal with backlogs and restore procedures in a way that has clinical prioritisation at its heart, so that the people who are most in need of treatment most quickly get priority. It is going to take some time.

In parallel to that, we need to continue the work to build up capacity that was under way before Covid. The national elective centres programme is an important part of that work, as is the expansion of digital access and the near me consultation service. It is not the whole solution, but in some respects it transforms the way in which patients access the health service. That work will be extremely important in the weeks and months ahead.

Of course, that work has to be done as the health service inevitably and inescapably manages to retain capacity should we start to see hospital and intensive care unit admissions for Covid rise again—although I fervently hope that we do not—as we go into the winter.

I am afraid that it is a delicate balancing act. It is not easy or straightforward. The health boards and the health secretary are absolutely focused on it.

Will the programme for government provide for communities such as Inverclyde, which have been hardest hit by Covid-19, in addition to having long-lasting employment, health and social inequalities?

There are lots of aspects of the programme that will be of particular help and assistance to communities such as Inverclyde. The work on retraining and upskilling the workforce will be important across Scotland, but it will be particularly important in those regions and sectors disproportionately hit by the economic downturn.

I also point to the work around placemaking in the programme for government. Having all been confined to our homes and local neighbourhoods during the crisis, we have been powerfully reminded of the importance of the quality of the places where we stay.

The funding that I announced today, backed by the work that we intend to do on 20-minute neighbourhoods and town centre regeneration, is important for many communities across the country, but it will have particular relevance to the communities that Stuart McMillan represents. Of course, all the work on social security provision is also important to ensure that we continue to focus on lifting families out of poverty.

Across Scotland, communities are witnessing local bus routes that were stopped during lockdown now being permanently axed, not least due to a lack of any meaningful conditions on service levels being placed on private bus firms in return for taxpayers’ grants. It has been a year since the Transport (Scotland) Bill was passed by the Parliament. Why is there no mention in the programme for government of giving councils the powers and funding that they need and want to set up and run their own local bus services, which are desperately needed if we are to halt the dismantling of bus routes that we have seen over the past decade?

Of course, the bill was passed and we are willing to discuss with councils how we take that forward. As has been the case in many respects, other issues have been preoccupying councils and the Government over the past few months, but I am happy to get the Cabinet Secretary for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity to write to Colin Smyth with details of how the work will be taken forward.

I welcome the £60 million youth guarantee, but will the First Minister outline how community-based groups—including those in my Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn constituency—that are engaging in youth and community learning activities can be supported to help to deliver the youth guarantee?

As I said earlier, the Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Fair Work and Culture will set out more details of the youth guarantee tomorrow. A collective effort on the part of Government, local authorities, employers and community organisations will be needed.

The community learning sector will be very important. That sector has shown a significant level of flexibility, resilience and, indeed, innovation over the pandemic, and it will be central to all the work that we do to guarantee opportunities for young people. We want to ensure that community learning and development plays a role in not only the youth guarantee, but civic and economic recovery overall.

It is worth pointing out that, in addition to the youth guarantee, we are investing £3 million in a youth work and education recovery fund, which will focus on ensuring that young people have the wider support that they need to build a positive future.

The First Minister said in her statement that freedom of speech and expression is fundamental in any democracy. The Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Bill has been criticised as a threat to freedom of speech by, among others, the Law Society of Scotland, the Scottish Police Federation and several cultural figures. Will the First Minister listen to those criticisms and withdraw and rethink the bill, which so many have spoken out against?

Liam Kerr has been in Parliament for long enough, I hope, to know how the legislative process works. I deliberately said what I did today because I know that concerns have been raised about the bill, and it is important that we listen to those concerns. I answered a question about the bill during First Minister’s question time last week. Offences about stirring up hatred are not new in Scots law; they have existed in relation to racial offences for quite some time.

One of Liam Kerr’s colleagues rightly raised the issue of disability hate crime. There are very good reasons why we need to ensure that we have laws in this country that are capable of tackling hate crime, because it is pernicious and horrible and we should have zero tolerance for it. However, we have to do that in a way that respects and protects people’s legitimate freedom of speech and expression. As with so many important things that we do in society, the issues are not always straightforward. They involve striking balances and getting into the real detail of how we get them right.

We are at the start of a legislative process. The right thing to do is to listen to concerns and to go through the committee scrutiny process. If we need to lodge amendments to reassure people who have legitimate concerns, we give an undertaking to do so. I mentioned the bill specifically today to give an indication to people that we hear the concerns. We want to navigate a way through the bill that ensures that we do what we want to do in relation to hate crime but that does not leave people thinking that the legitimate right to freedom of speech is being compromised.

Although the pandemic has been difficult for us all in many ways, it has led to unimaginable consequences for some, and there have sadly been increased levels of domestic abuse and gender-based violence. What is the Scottish Government doing to tackle violence against women and girls?

Since the start of the crisis, and particularly since the start of lockdown when we were in effect asking people to stay in their own homes, I and many others have been deeply concerned about the greater risks that people who are victims of domestic abuse are facing—in the main, but not exclusively, they are women and children.

I know that Police Scotland continues to prioritise domestic abuse cases and we are focused, as we have been all along, on ensuring that front-line services can continue to offer support. Back in March, we gave additional funding to Women’s Aid and other front-line services, and implementing the equally safe strategy to prevent violence against women and girls remains a priority of the programme.

As I indicated earlier, we will introduce legislation on domestic abuse protection orders. My message to those who are suffering domestic abuse—and it should be the message that comes from us all—is that you are not on your own. There is help out there and you should not hesitate to come forward and get help.

The First Minister commits her Government to a green jobs focus, which Scottish Labour has long argued for. That includes £60 million to support the industrial and manufacturing sectors to transition to net zero. In view of there not being a circular economy bill in the programme for government, can the First Minister explain how the Scottish Government, working with trade unions, businesses and education providers, will ensure that relevant skills and job opportunities will be justly created in both design and remanufacturing and how there will be a relevant conditionality in investment and procurement?

All that is built into the approach that we take to all those things.

It is encapsulated in the just transition commission, which of course includes trade union voices. We consult trade unions widely, and rightly, about all manner of things that relate to jobs and fair work, and we will continue to try to make sure that justice is at the heart of every aspect of the transition to net zero. We also put a huge emphasis—and, rightly, an increasing emphasis—on our fair work agenda, making sure that where appropriate there is, as the member referred to, conditionality on Government support, with that support being available only if the right things are done in relation to the workforce. We will continue to make sure that the voice of trade unions is heard loudly and clearly. I meet twice a year with the Scottish Trades Union Congress and member trade unions to make sure that all those issues are absolutely embedded in our approach on an on-going basis.

The First Minister has made much of the benefits of digital technology, and I whole-heartedly agree. Other devolved nations are investigating smart apps to allow particularly the disabled, elderly and infirm to claim under a deposit return scheme, but the Scottish Government ruled that out. Why?

I am very happy to get the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform to give a detailed answer to that, because I am unfortunately not able to do that right now. Digital is a core part of how we all live our lives. I apologise to Maurice Golden for not knowing the exact details, but if we have decided not to do something, it will not simply be a case of having set our face against it; there will undoubtedly be reasons why we reached that conclusion and, as I said, I will ask the environment secretary to set that out in more detail. Increasingly, across all our programmes, making sure that the ability to access them digitally and as easily as possible is critical. I will make sure that that more detailed response comes as quickly as possible.

Will the First Minister confirm that the £275 million investment for town centres and the active travel investment will be passed on to local authorities so that they can deliver on the ambitions that she has for 20-minute neighbourhoods and the transformation that our communities and town centres desperately need, given the impact of Covid, and will she confirm whether the £500 million investment in active travel represents an increase on current spending?

I will respond in writing to Sarah Boyack on the precise detail of the funding over current spending to make sure that the information that I give her is absolutely accurate.

On the question whether the funding will go to local authorities, they are central to that and we will have discussions in the normal course of events with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and with local authorities about the specific allocations. We cannot do active travel and community regeneration without local authorities, so in one way, shape or form the money will be spent in local communities and I am sure that a significant chunk of it will be guided by local authorities. That will all be part of the budgetary discussions that we have with local authorities on an on-going basis.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to appoint a patient safety commissioner. Social care owners and trade unions have, for many years, asked the Government to introduce national collective bargaining. The only barrier to that appears to be the Government, which has been reluctant to go down that route. There is no need to wait for another review. Will the First Minister agree to bring trade unions and social care owners together to begin implementing sectoral bargaining in that area right now?

I will not give an absolute guarantee on that now, but I will take that idea away and come back with a more considered answer. I strongly advocate collective bargaining. Through our performance framework, we have a target to increase collective bargaining in our economy. The fair work commission has looked particularly at the social care sector. I will discuss this with colleagues and with trade unions and will consider whether we can and should move more quickly on it than the timescale in the review that I set out today.

That ends the statement on the programme for government, which we will debate tomorrow.

16:11 Meeting suspended.  

16:13 On resuming—