Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid)

Meeting date: Thursday, September 2, 2021

Official Report 1023KB pdf

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First Minister’s Question Time

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Vaccine Certification

Earlier this week, two Green MSPs joined Nicola Sturgeon’s Government, taking the total number of ministers up to 29. Did all 29 agree with her proposals to introduce vaccine passports?

It will be Parliament, next week, that decides whether to introduce vaccine certification. I set out the reasons for the Scottish Government’s view on that yesterday. Of course, all ministers—all 29 hard-working, dedicated ministers—are bound by collective responsibility under the ministerial code.

This is a question of how we best continue to control Covid in the least restrictive, most proportionate way. I think that vaccine certification, in the limited way that I set out yesterday, has a role to play in doing that.

The First Minister refused to say whether her ministers all agreed at the time of her announcement that they supported vaccine passports. It seems that the coalition of chaos, which the First Minister described earlier this week as “a leap of faith”, is already a leap into the dark for the Greens.

The Greens are not the only people in Scotland who have no idea how vaccine passports are going to work. Hospitality groups say that the lack of engagement is extremely concerning. Scottish football clubs have warned that the Scottish National Party’s plans are completely unworkable. Industry groups need answers about the scheme before the Government introduces it. Why have they not had that chance?

Perhaps Douglas Ross should, first and foremost, concentrate on what his views on vaccine certification are: whether he supports it or opposes it, or whether he is going to continue simply to engage in the infantile opposition that characterises so much of the Conservatives’ response to Covid.

This is a global pandemic. It demands of politicians—particularly those of us in government—really tough decisions, and we have all got a responsibility to live up to that. On the detail, we will produce the detail of how the scheme will work before we bring the proposal to Parliament for Parliament to debate and decide, through a vote, whether we go ahead with it. I say to Douglas Ross that, had I stood here yesterday or even today and announced as a fait accompli exactly how every single aspect of this was going to operate, he would be here today criticising me for taking for granted the views of Parliament and not giving Parliament its proper place. We will do this properly and we will do it in the way that people have a right to expect of their Government.

Of course, we saw across a range of sectors yesterday an understanding of the reasons for the proposal. Nobody wants any form of restrictions, but, while we have this virus, we have to determine the least restrictive way of keeping people safe. Geoff Ellis of DF Concerts said:

“The Government are doing all that they can to avoid another lockdown. As an industry we all have to support that, and we all have to do our bit.”

The Federation of Small Businesses said that it does not want the prospect of stricter restrictions:

“We believe the business community will accept this change.”

The Scottish Football Supporters Association said:

“If Covid certificates are what it takes to allow fans to keep supporting their clubs then it’s better than no fans present.”

There is a degree of understanding and pragmatism among people on the front line. Perhaps Douglas Ross could take a leaf out of their book and engage with this with a degree of responsibility and recognition of the severity of the situation that we face.

It is absolutely not responsible of Nicola Sturgeon to fail to answer questions at First Minister’s question time. I was asking about engagement and about her Government. Parliament will debate the plans, but it would be nice to know exactly what we are debating. At the moment, hospitality groups, football clubs and venues have no idea what infrastructure will be in place or whether they will get any help to introduce vaccine passports. It is just another example of the shambolic, last-minute, knee-jerk decision making of this Government. The same Government that brought us confusion over what is a cafe now brings us confusion over what is a night club. John Swinney U-turned on vertical drinking; now he has U-turned on Covid passports. A month ago, he was against them; just this morning, at the COVID-19 Recovery Committee, the Deputy First Minister suggested that vaccine passports could be permanent. This Government has had months to prepare to get this right. If any of it has been properly thought through, will Nicola Sturgeon tell us exactly what infrastructure will be in place, who will administer it, what financial support will be available and whether the Deputy First Minister is correct in saying that the passports might be permanent?

First, in the face of a global pandemic of an infectious virus, the public should be—and I suspect are—very wary of politicians who suggest that any Government should take a dogmatic, unchanging position, because that is not the way that we keep the public safe.

We have been considering the issue carefully. I could probably paper the walls of this chamber with quotes from me expressly saying that we had not ruled out vaccine certification, that we wanted to consider the issue carefully, that we were keeping our minds open and that we had ruled out ever asking for vaccine passports for essential public services but that, for settings such as night clubs, there was a debate to be had and a case to be made.

Regular viewers of First Minister’s question time—I am not sure how big a group that is—will have heard Douglas Ross say to me that this Government needs to respect Parliament. Cabinet discussed the issue on Tuesday and I came to Parliament yesterday to tell it that it was the Government’s intention that we would take our proposals to Parliament next week. We are engaging with sectors across the economy. We will put the detail to Parliament to allow Parliament to decide, and then, assuming that Parliament agrees, we will implement our proposals. That is not just the way that Government should operate; it is often—until it does not suit him—the way that Douglas Ross demands that Government operates.

This is a really serious situation, not just for Scotland but for the United Kingdom and for many countries across Europe—and vaccine certification is already operating in many of those countries. Is it too much to expect, in these serious times, that we have a leader of the Opposition who can engage properly with the substance of these matters?

Is it too much to expect to have a First Minister answer First Minister’s questions? Unless the First Minister has failed to notice it, Parliament is sitting at the moment, elected members of the Scottish Parliament are asking her questions and she is unable to answer. She may be able to paper the walls with her views on Covid passports, but she has singularly failed to answer a single question about what they will mean for businesses and industries across Scotland.

This Government used to grandstand about its handling of the pandemic. We do not hear those boasts any more. From the display from the First Minister today, it looks as though vaccine passports will add to a long list of failures by this Government. We heard today that thousands of long Covid sufferers in Scotland cannot get referred to a support service, yet the Scottish National Party’s flimsy pamphlet on national health service recovery did not contain a single mention of long Covid. Accident and emergency waiting times are the worst in six years, drug deaths are the worst in seven years and alcohol deaths are the worst in eight years. People cannot get to see their general practitioner and are waiting hours for an ambulance. The First Minister is losing her grip on Covid and the NHS is in crisis. The pressure is only going to build as we move towards winter, so when will the First Minister give us a real plan to get our health service back on track?

We have a recovery plan. The NHS, supported by Government, starts planning for winter much earlier in the year. Those plans are there. There is enormous pressure on our national health service right now. That is partly because of rising Covid cases, which, because of the delta variant, many countries are grappling with right now.

I would say in passing that, had it been down to Douglas Ross, we would not even have in place some of the mitigations against Covid that we do have in place, because he wanted us to remove all of them and have no protections against the transmission of Covid.

As a responsible Government, we will do what requires to be done to protect the public against Covid, and we will do that for as long as is necessary. We will support our NHS with £1 billion of additional targeted resource to aid recovery. When I saw one of the Tory spokespersons commenting on the matter last week—on the day that the recovery plan was published, I think—she seemed to be saying that it was bad that we committed £1 billion, because the Tories had wanted us to commit £600 million. I was not entirely sure that I followed that logic.

On long Covid, we have invested £2.5 million in research projects and money in support services through Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, which is making a number of legitimate points today about the further work that we need to do to ensure support for those who suffer from long Covid. We will continue to do what needs to be done and to take the decisions to support the NHS and the country to get through the Covid crisis, which is the responsible action that people expect from their Government.

I welcome all contributions from across the chamber to that discussion. Perhaps Douglas Ross can raise his game a little bit from screaming about U-turns and so on and actually be part of finding the solutions that the country needs now.

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National Health Service Waiting Lists

I know that everyone in the chamber agrees that, in the past 18 months, our national health service staff have performed remarkably under pressure. Even before the pandemic, they were undervalued, underresourced and overworked. This week, we have seen the number of people on NHS waiting lists rise to more than 600,000. Does the First Minister agree that

“This is a humiliation for”

the SNP

“and a tragedy for the tens of thousands of patients languishing on ever lengthening lists”?

It is the responsibility of the Government to support the NHS and to help NHS staff get through what is an extremely challenging situation for countries across the world. Most people recognise that we are in a global pandemic that has had a significant impact on our NHS. Anas Sarwar is right to say that there were challenges in our NHS before Covid, but as we can see from the waiting times improvement plan that was in place then, waiting times were starting to be reduced through the investment that we had made.

We obviously all know the impact that Covid has had on the NHS. This year’s recovery plan is backed by £1 billion of additional investment, and looks to build capacity in our NHS in relation to in-patients and day cases—a 10 per cent increase in capacity over five years, with a 20 per cent increase for in-patients and a 10 per cent increase for out-patients over the five-year period. The plan also sets out reforms to the way in which healthcare is delivered. Just last week, I visited the Golden Jubilee national hospital to look at some innovations in robotic procedures and at changes to how diagnostic operations are done.

I will not stand here and in any way underplay the challenge. However, we support the NHS through record increased funding, support for staff and the biggest agenda for change pay rise in the history of devolution—the largest pay rise across the United Kingdom—to ensure that we are delivering for patients as we come out of, and recover from, Covid.

Again, I say that that is what people look to their Government to do.

I note that the First Minister did not answer the question. The reason why she did not is that I was actually quoting her from 2003. All I did was replace the word “Labour” with “SNP”. However, the difference is that in 2003 Nicola Sturgeon said that a list of over 84,000 people was a humiliation. We are talking today about a list of more than 600,000, compared to 84,000 then.

I know that Nicola Sturgeon says that the situation is because of the pandemic, but let us look at the stats before the pandemic: 450,000 people were languishing on NHS waiting lists before the pandemic even began—every one of them an anxious human being with a worried family. That is a humiliation.

The long lists mean that more complicated cases present at accident and emergency. This month had the worst A and E waiting times since records began: 24,000 of our fellow citizens waited more than four hours, 4,000 waited more than eight hours and almost 1,000 fellow citizens waited more than 12 hours, while ambulances queued outside hospitals. If the First Minister was looking those 24,000 patients and the 6,000 patients on waiting lists in the eye, what would she say to them?

I would say that it is my responsibility to support the national health service to recover from a global pandemic. The difference between now and 2003 is not the difference that Anas Sarwar tried to suggest, but is a global pandemic that has placed significant pressure on our national health service. Before the pandemic, the difference was the changing demographic of our country. Every nation across the UK is grappling with that.

That is why the Scottish Government has ensured record investment in the national health service—which would not have happened had Labour stayed in government—record staff numbers in our NHS and a recovery plan that targets £1 billion at building the capacity of our NHS.

I would say to patients that in opposition—I know, because I have been there—it is easy to come up with slogans, but in Government the responsibility is to deliver investment to support staff and to make changes for patients. That is exactly what we will continue to do.

The problem the First Minister has is that she accepts that she relied on slogans in opposition and has kept on relying on slogans while she has been in government. That is the problem for people across the country. The First Minister cannot ignore the fact that the figure was 450,000 before the pandemic—and she thought that 84,000 was a humiliation in 2003.

Doctors, nurses and patients agree that the NHS is in crisis. We need more than the thin recovery plan that has been produced by the Government, which is more of a slogan and a public relations exercise than a genuine effort to rebuild our NHS.

Let us look at what the experts say. The BMA called the recovery plan “unrealistic”. The nurses have called the workforce planning “woefully poor”. The recovery plan means that we will not meet the 62-day cancer standard for another five years—that is on top of its not having been met for the past nine years. That will mean that people are diagnosed late, that their treatment will start late and that lives will be lost, as a result.

Will the First Minister listen to what the professionals on the front line and patients are telling her? Will she recognise that the Government plan is not good enough and is not working? With the peak pressures of winter on their way, will she act before it is too late?

We continue to support the plan with £1 billion of investment and 1,500 additional staff for the national treatment centres. We will continue to support the NHS in that way. If Anas Sarwar wants to come forward in the forthcoming budget process and point to where he thinks we should take extra money from to add to that, I would be very happy to listen. However, he has to do that with responsibility and not in a way that suggests that he can simply conjure money out of nowhere.

We have a big responsibility to get waiting times back on track. Incidentally, one of the other differences between now and 2003 is that our waiting times targets are so much more ambitious than they were under Labour because we are delivering more for patients and—[Interruption.]

The last point—[Interruption.]

We will hear the First Minister.

No one in the Government underplays the seriousness of the situation that we face right now or how difficult the challenges ahead are for all of society—the NHS in particular. However, it is only a matter of months since the Scottish people had the opportunity to look at all that and to make a choice about whom they trust and have confidence in to lead the country through those challenges. The public chose this Government.

We take that responsibility seriously every day, as we continue to navigate the country through the crisis and into recovery. We dedicate ourselves to that responsibility today and every day that we are in office.

I now call constituency supplementaries.

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Covid Vaccine Trials (Proof of Vaccination QR Codes)

I, along with 400 others in the north-east of Scotland, am taking part in the Novavax Covid vaccine trial. The NHS Inform website has no record of all those volunteers being vaccinated, therefore we cannot download proof of vaccination or a QR code. Will the First Minister join me in thanking those volunteers and ensure that they are not excluded from any events that might require proof of vaccination using a system that is based on QR codes?

I thank Douglas Lumsden for raising that issue. I take the opportunity to thank everybody who has participated in vaccine trials, because they have contributed hugely to the safety and wellbeing of us all. We have already made it clear that nobody who took part in those trials, including the member, will be disadvantaged in any way. The vaccination will be recognised, and we are working on ensuring that that can be evidenced. I will write to the member to update him on exactly how that will happen.

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Covid-19 (Schools)

The First Minister will be aware of the situation at St Ninian’s high school in Kirkintilloch, where earlier this week, due to a Covid outbreak, 405 of the 850 pupils were absent from school. What support should schools such as St Ninian’s expect from public health teams when such outbreaks occur? Why was the deadline for school ventilation improvement set for the October mid-term break rather than for the start of the school term in mid-August?

On the latter question, that deadline was in order to allow schools and local authorities the opportunity, as schools went back, to assess ventilation across the school estate, to ensure that they were using CO₂ monitors to do that, and to put in place any remedial plans that were required. That on-going work is being closely monitored. It is incumbent on local public health teams to provide appropriate support to schools or any other settings that experience outbreaks.

We changed the rules—as was set out to Parliament—around contact tracing and isolation in schools in order to try to reduce the number of young people who were being asked to isolate and were therefore having their education disrupted when they were not, in reality, at risk of getting Covid. A risk-based approach is now being taken, led by test and protect and public health teams. There are public health teams in every area of Scotland to offer advice and support to schools and to others who need it.

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Inverclyde Royal Hospital

The First Minister will be aware that temporary changes to the intensive care unit and accident and emergency trauma care at Inverclyde royal hospital in Greenock will now be made permanent, despite fierce opposition. That is a decision that will mean hundreds of patients being moved to Glasgow. That flies in the face of a commitment that was made by Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, and by ministers in this very chamber, that no such decision would be taken without full consultation.

Will the First Minister offer a firm commitment to the users of Inverclyde royal hospital, including users of its accident and emergency and intensive care departments, that those departments, in their full capacity, are there to stay in order to meet the full needs of all patients in West Scotland?

I will happily write to Jamie Greene with more detail on that. My understanding is that those changes are certainly not permanent, and that they would not be made permanent without full and proper consultation, but I am happy to write, or to ask the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to do so, to the member with more information on that.

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Cabinet (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when the Cabinet will next meet. (S6F-00196)

Tuesday.

I am grateful for that answer. I will state this clearly where other members have not: I and my party are fundamentally opposed to vaccine passports as a matter of principle. The rush to introduce the policy in short order throws up practical problems. How will it keep up with vaccinations across borders and with the booster programme, which is already in chaos? In addition, hospitality sees the policy as a threat and has no idea how it will police it. It is unclear what it will mean for young people. Will I need a vaccine passport to join a mass protest against vaccine passports?

Above all, Scots will, for the first time, have to provide private medical data to strangers in order to access freedoms in our society. Vaccines are the way out of the pandemic, but vaccine passports are not. There is no time limit, and there is an open door to expansion. Where does this stop?

I do not agree with Alex Cole-Hamilton on many of those points, but I have a lot more respect for his position than I do for some of what we heard earlier, because it is a principled position and a legitimate debate.

As I have said before, I have my own concerns about the use of vaccine certification, but my view is based on the following. We are still in the grip of a pandemic. The virus is highly infectious and doing nothing over the next period is therefore not an option. We have to stem transmission and the question therefore becomes how we do that in the least restrictive and most proportionate way.

We can take nightclubs as an example. As we get into winter, it may be—although I would hope that this would not be the case—that the choice with regard to nightclubs is not between vaccine certification or no restrictions at all, but between something like vaccine certification or having to have heavier restrictions and perhaps facing closure again, which none of us wants.

This is a proportionate step, and I hope that it will be a time-limited step. It will be very limited in terms of its application to settings. As I said yesterday, certainly at this stage, we do not intend to extend it to hospitality more generally, and we would not do that without full parliamentary consultation.

Vaccine certification schemes are operating in many countries—in Ireland, for example, which is the closest to us—on a much wider-ranging basis than I set out yesterday. I genuinely wish that we were not in this position, but we are; therefore, we have to think about every proportionate measure that we can take to protect people.

We will set out the detail. Some legitimate questions have been posed, and we have to work with other countries to make sure that we have interoperability. None of these things is straightforward in our current circumstances. My judgment is that it is a proportionate step, but of course it will be the Parliament that gets to decide next week.

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Free Prescriptions

A consultation closes today on the proposal in England and Wales to increase the qualifying age for free prescriptions from 60 to the state pension age of 66. Age UK has branded the move as a “kick in the teeth” for older people. The proposal highlights the difference between the progressive Scottish National Party Government in Scotland and the cruel politics of Westminster. Will the First Minister confirm that no one in Scotland will be left struggling or unable to afford medicines that they need to stay as healthy as possible, and that prescriptions will remain free for all?

Yes, it is certainly the position of this Government that free prescriptions will remain. People should have access to the medicines that they need without charge and without having—as some people used to have to do—to make invidious choices between taking their medicines and feeding themselves. I never want to return to that. It beggars belief that elsewhere in the UK there is a consultation on taking away free prescriptions for people over 60. That is not my decision, obviously, but I hope that we do not see that direction of travel. I am categoric that, as long as this Government is in office, free prescriptions are here to stay.

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Long Covid

Health professionals and Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland have today published a long Covid action plan. At least 74,000 people are living with long Covid and the numbers are rising. Many of those people are not getting the services that they need. Does the First Minister agree with the recommendations in the report, in particular on the creation of a long Covid fund for health boards to access?

Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland is doing a fantastic job, supported by funding from the Scottish Government. It has made a number of important points today and published an action plan that has four key recommendations. Broadly, I have sympathy with them all, but we want to discuss them in detail with Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, which is what we will do. Recommendation 4 is on a long Covid capacity fund, to which, in the course of our budget discussions, we will give serious consideration, as we will do for the other three main recommendations.

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Exam System

Our exam system, just like our education system, must be there to serve all pupils. That has not been the case in the past two years, which is shameful. Having considered the latest Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report, does the First Minister agree that it would be unacceptable to create a situation in which some young people could leave school with no opportunity to gain an externally assessed exam-based qualification? Does she recognise that exams are not a Victorian British legacy but a Scottish educational tradition?

I recognise the important role of exams in the Scottish educational tradition, and not only in the Scottish educational tradition. There is a need to properly consider for the future how we certificate the achievements of young people and what the correct balance is between formal exams and on-going assessment. We should all enter into that debate, and we should come at it from the perspective of what is best for our young people. I look forward to hearing views and contributions on that from across the range of perspectives. We will continue to take responsible decisions as we get our education system back on track and through the Covid recovery.

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Retail Stock and Staff (Shortages)

To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had with the United Kingdom Government regarding reports of retail stock and staff shortages in the run-up to Christmas. (S6F-00200)

The Scottish ministers first wrote to the UK Government about this emerging problem back in July. The Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and Islands has written again this week seeking a meeting to discuss the challenges. The fact that we have had to ask for such a meeting tells its own story about how urgently, or otherwise, the UK Government is treating the issue.

We have warned repeatedly of the damage that would be caused by Brexit. We knew that the loss of freedom of movement would be particularly damaging. Sadly, staff shortages are now putting real pressure on food and drink supplies, and the images of healthy food rotting in the fields are astonishing. Frankly, the Tories should be hanging their heads in shame for this whole sorry situation.

The British Retail Consortium is the latest organisation to warn of further price increases and disruption in the coming months, due to the Tory-led Brexit. Does the First Minister agree that Brexit has been nothing short of a disaster, that Scotland is increasingly vulnerable under Westminster control and that the only way to keep Scotland safe from the long-term economic and social devastation of the Tory-led Brexit is for Scotland to secure our independence?

The Conservatives do not like to hear this but, right now, not just in Scotland but across the UK, we are in the quite incredible situation—unlike other countries across the European Union, and this is not about Covid—of seeing shortages in our supermarkets and having shortages of other supplies, with children being told that there might not be toys at Christmas because of the disruption to supply chains.

Conservatives should take some responsibility, because the situation is entirely inflicted by their obsession with Brexit. There are two things that it is important to remember here. First, Scotland did not vote for Brexit. Secondly, it was utterly reckless of the Conservatives to plough ahead with Brexit in the middle of a global pandemic.

Those issues illustrate the fact: those are things that are being done to Scotland, not by Scotland. The only solution is for us to take control of all our affairs in Scotland—and, yes, that does mean being an independent country.

Has the First Minister ever told a senior Scottish police officer that she has lost confidence in them, and would it be appropriate for a First Minister to do so?

That question is not relevant to the question. Supplementary questions should refer to the question that was asked. I therefore move to question 5, from Tess White.

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Ambulances (Increase in Waiting Times)

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking in response to the increase in ambulance waiting times in parts of Scotland. (S6F-00195)

The Scottish Ambulance Service is currently carrying out a national review of demand and capacity. The review will ensure that the right resources are in place across the country to help meet both present and future predicted demand. Over the past four years, we have invested more than £1 billion, and we continue to invest, with just over £20 million in additional funding being made available to support the review. That has resulted in 67 extra front-line staff in the north of Scotland, with a mixture of experienced paramedics, newly qualified paramedics and technicians, along with nine patient transport service staff. The Scotland-wide figure is 296.

Work is also under way in partnership with health boards across the country to put in place improvement measures to reduce any unnecessary delays for ambulances waiting at hospitals to hand over patients.

The First Minister whizzed through that very quickly—I had to take note very quickly to make sure that I did not miss it.

In recent weeks, NHS Grampian has said that staff are under more pressure than at any other time throughout the pandemic. There have been reports of people across the north-east waiting for up to 20—two-zero—hours to be taken to hospital by ambulance. Ambulances are being stacked outside hospital entrances, because there simply is not the capacity to treat more patients.

A 28-page plan is just not good enough. What immediate action is the Scottish Government taking to address the crisis?

I answered that in my first answer, but since the member said that she did not quite catch it, I will go through some of the detail again. She is right: there are challenges on our Ambulance Service because of the pressures on our national health service caused by Covid. We have not just produced a 28-page plan, important though that is; we have invested an additional £20 million—additional to the £1 billion over the past four years, which I spoke about—to support the on-going review of the Scottish Ambulance Service.

As I said, in the north of Scotland that has already resulted in 67 extra front-line staff: a mixture of experienced and newly qualified paramedics and technicians, and nine patient transport service staff. As I said, that is more than 250 across Scotland. That is what we are doing immediately.

On the performance of the Ambulance Service, again, the service is under pressure and I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to paramedics, technicians and everybody working in the service. However, in the most recent week the Ambulance Service advises that it responded to around 10,500—10,401—emergency incidents, which was up 1.2 per cent from the previous week; for the most urgent calls, the median national response time was 8 minutes 55 seconds. I recognise that there will be people waiting longer than that and there will be some people who have waited completely unacceptable lengths of time—that is why we are investing in this way. However, we are taking the action, making the investment and supporting the Ambulance Service in the excellent work what it does.

I call Pam Duncan-Glancy.

I think that I may have pressed my button too early, Presiding Officer. I hoped to come in after a different question.

Thank you. In that case, we move on to question 6, from Neil Gray.

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Universal Credit (Reduction)

To ask the First Minister what engagement the Scottish Government has had with the United Kingdom Government regarding the reduction to universal credit that is set to take place at the end of September. (S6F-00202)

As I have set out in Parliament on previous occasions, we have strongly urged UK ministers not to push people into poverty through the cut of £20 to universal credit. Most recently, the social justice secretary joined colleagues in Wales and Northern Ireland in writing to the UK Government on the matter. I know that the same calls have come from the children’s commissioners, poverty campaigners and even those on the Prime Minister’s own back benches, although I am not sure that we have heard it from Conservative members in this Parliament, but I may be wrong on that.

We know that families are struggling. This cut risks pushing a further 60,000 people in Scotland, including 20,000 children, into poverty. Just to put that in context, the cut would be the biggest overnight reduction to a basic rate of social security since the beginning of the modern welfare state more than 70 years ago. I hope that we can unite in this Parliament to call on the UK Government not to take that £20 away from the people who need it most.

It is shocking, isn’t it? The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Thérèse Coffey, responded to the four nations committee chairs’ joint letter calling for the uplift to be kept by saying that the Government is prioritising getting people into work, ignoring the 1.7 million people on universal credit who the Department for Work and Pensions does not expect to get or find work and the almost two fifths of universal credit recipients who are already in work but still need to use services such as the Paul’s Parcels (Food Poverty Prevention Group) food bank in Shotts, which I visited last week. Does that not show the limitation of our hybrid, only part-devolved social security system, where the benefit of the likes of the Scottish child payment will be wiped out and tens of thousands of people in Scotland will be forced into poverty at a stroke of the chancellor’s pen?

There is a serious issue here. The intended removal, which I hope does not go ahead, of the £20 a week will push thousands and thousands of people into poverty, and that is not something that any of us should sit back and be in any way comfortable about. Neil Gray is absolutely right. The Tories say that they would rather that people were in work. Of course we want to support people into work where they can work, but so many of the people on universal credit are already working—that is the point that is being missed here—and many others are not able to work, but they will all have that £20 a week taken away. As I said a moment ago, in Scotland alone that means 20,000 children pushed into poverty.

That is why the other serious aspect of this is the one that Neil Gray raises. We have rolled out already, and are rolling out, the Scottish child payment and there are, rightly, calls for us to go further with that and to increase the value of the child payment, which we are committed to doing. However, that £20 cut simply takes away money that we are trying to put into the pockets of the poorest in our society. It is ridiculous to take such decisions. People surely do not even have to support independence to say that it would be much better if we could join up all of this within the powers of this Parliament so that we can decide and set aside the resources that we need to lift children out of poverty and not see them pushed back into poverty.

This is an issue, but not the only one, where I hope we can find real consensus across the chamber and can act to tackle child poverty, rather than do what we can while watching a Government elsewhere do the complete opposite.

I thank the Presiding Officer and members in the chamber for their patience with my error earlier in pressing the button too soon.

I hope that every MP will do everything that they can to retain the £20 uplift in universal credit, because to remove it is abhorrent and would mean that some families in Scotland will no longer be eligible for the Scottish child payment. Will the Scottish Government use its powers here to ensure that those families who would have been eligible for the child payment continue to get it?

We will do everything that we can, through our powers and resources, to make sure that we lift children out of poverty and do not allow them to be pushed into poverty. I absolutely respect and sympathise with the sentiment behind that question, but there is a hard issue for us in this Parliament. Every time the Conservatives at Westminster make a cut to social security and save money from that cut, they do not transfer that money to the Scottish Parliament so, every time we have to mitigate such a cut, we have to take money from elsewhere in the budget. It is an unsustainable way to proceed so, although we all want to lift children out of poverty, it goes back to my previous point. I am not that hopeful that I will get Conservative agreement to that point, but I am more hopeful that I will get the agreement of people such as Pam Duncan-Glancy, because I recognise her sincerity. We need to bring all those powers to the Scottish Parliament, so that we can do those things sensibly and we can—[Interruption.]

Conservatives who cannot bring themselves to oppose their own chancellor taking £20 a week away from the poorest children in our society have no room to lecture me about using powers in this Parliament. Let those of us who genuinely care about lifting children out of poverty come together in opposition to that callous, uncaring Tory Government.

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Anti-Irish Racism and Anti-Catholic Prejudice (Public Displays)

To ask the First Minister what plans the Scottish Government has to tackle public displays of anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic prejudice. (S6F-00189)

I say very clearly that there is never any excuse or justification for hatred or bigotry and I unequivocally condemn anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic prejudice. It should be called what it is and it should be called out.

Scotland is a diverse, multicultural society. That diversity strengthens us as a nation and that is why it is so important that we tackle all forms of prejudice and discrimination. Police Scotland is committed to protecting our communities and will act on all incidents of bigoted violence, disorder and vandalism, including follow-up investigations based on evidence that has been gathered. Those who commit criminal acts that are motivated by prejudice can expect to feel the full force of justice, and I know that, just this morning, the police have issued a comment about the progress of a particular investigation.

I thank the First Minister for that strong answer. I hope that she agrees that there is still a clear problem with a minority of people displaying anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice, as well as a growing feeling that, if those terms were used about any other minority group, the sentiments displayed on our streets would be treated far more seriously. For the avoidance of doubt, I am sure that the First Minister is aware that the famine song contains the words

“The famine is over, why don’t you go home?”,

as confirmed by Lord Carloway in his judgment in 2009.

I welcome the fact that there were three arrests last night in relation to that particular incident and I applaud the fact that Rangers Football Club has just announced an indefinite ban of the members who they identified as being involved in singing the famine song; that must be welcomed. I want the First Minister to reassure me that Police Scotland will respond proportionately to those offences and, in doing so, I offer my full support to the First Minister to work with her and everyone to ensure that all forms of racism and bigotry are stamped out in Scotland.

I thank Pauline McNeill for the question, the way in which she asked it and the offer of support, because we should all come together to tackle this issue.

I say clearly—and I know that everyone across the chamber will support this—that I take the view that, for anybody who chooses to live in Scotland, whether they and their families have been here for generations or whether they have come to Scotland very recently, it is home. This is their home and we should not allow anybody ever to say—[Interruption.]

I would be grateful if members at all times in the chamber remember that we are privileged to represent the people of Scotland and that at all times in the chamber we treat one another with great dignity and respect. I would be grateful if we could now hear the First Minister. Thank you.

Presiding Officer, I have just had a comment made to me from a sedentary position. I would not normally do this, but I am so deeply offended by the comment that I want to take it up with you after this meeting, so that, with your permission, the member might be asked to reflect on that and to withdraw the comment. It was a comment that would have been unacceptable in any context, but in the context of what we are discussing right now, I am deeply aggrieved that any member thought that that was an appropriate thing to say.

I go back to the very important question that was asked. All of us—all of us—have a duty to stand against racism, prejudice and bigotry. I dedicate myself, not just as First Minister but as a citizen of this country, to always do so. I look forward to working with anybody who stands with me and with people across Scotland in that. I thank Pauline McNeill again for her question.

That concludes First Minister’s questions. I ask members who are leaving the chamber to do so quietly.