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Is it not the case that although the First Minister might live in Scotland, he has decided not to act because he does not care about the victims of the bedroom tax and would rather exploit their pain?
It is about taking hard choices and changing people’s lives. He talks, to bolster his argument, about 25,000 apprenticeships, but he gets to that figure by calling 10,000 people who are already in work for six months apprentices.
There comes a time when the Scottish Court Service must not only live within the budget that has been imposed on it as a result of the cuts from Westminster, but take account of the volume of business.
When we revisit the annual uprating process next year, I hope that the worst of the pandemic will be behind us and the measures that we have introduced will have made a real difference to people’s lives. I am happy to take questions.
I take this opportunity to apologise unreservedly for that. The decision to go live at the earliest opportunity with the remote voting system that was developed over the short summer recess was taken in the knowledge that we would all be learning as we go along, and I know that we have some way to go to build more confidence in the system.
However, one thing that is different now is that we are living through a global pandemic. We were not able to have scheduled exams this year; therefore, we had to put in place an alternative process.
I hope that there is a review process to consider those important decisions. 17:02 The pandemic that we face is disrupting lives like never before. A key priority and focus of the Scottish Government in partnership with local government will be to ensure our communities are supported and protected as much as possible under the current circumstances and I, ...