Meeting of the Parliament

Meeting date: Thursday, February 25, 2016

Official Report 889KB pdf

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First Minister’s Question Time

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Engagements

To ask the First Minister what engagements she has planned for the rest of the day. (S4F-03244)

I have planned engagements to take forward the Government’s programme for Scotland.

Yesterday, the Deputy First Minister said that claims by trade unions about the number of job losses that will result from the Scottish National Party’s budget cuts were “utterly exaggerated.” Does the First Minister agree with her deputy?

I am glad that we are on the issue of claims. First, I say that any job losses in any sector are a matter of regret; that is why this Government has a policy of no compulsory redundancies.

John Swinney got something wrong in the chamber yesterday. He said that, based on the most recent figures, employment in the devolved public sector had gone down by 500. I have to tell the Deputy First Minister that that was a misreading of the statistics. Employment in the devolved public sector, according to the most recent statistics, has gone up by 500.

The reason why it is important to treat these issues seriously and not to be irresponsible in exaggerating is illustrated by something that Kezia Dugdale said in the chamber yesterday, which was repeated by Jackie Baillie. She said that Clackmannanshire Council was going to reduce the number of its jobs by 350. That is a puzzling claim, because Clackmannanshire Council’s budget was set the day before yesterday and the actual number is less than a third of the one that Kezia Dugdale cited. [Interruption.]

Order. Let us hear the First Minister.

These are important matters. This is not an easy time for councils or the public sector, and it is not helped by Labour’s wild scaremongering, which is more about its desperate fight for survival than it is about anything else.

The First Minister calls it “wild scaremongering”. Here are the words of Willie McGonigle from Unite:

“We’ve lost 40,000 local government jobs since 2010 and over the next year we will likely lose a further 15,000 as a result of the Scottish Government’s cuts ... To suggest the Budget cuts will have ‘a minimal impact on jobs or services’ is frankly astounding.”

Those are not my words but the words of the leading trade union in this country.

The casual disregard with which John Swinney dismissed those who are losing their jobs left many workers sick to their stomach yesterday. To hear the First Minister back him up today is even worse, because despite the pretence from the Government, the reality is that cuts are happening all across the country because of a choice that the SNP made.

SNP-controlled councils just this week passed plans to cut the number of staff in their schools. Now the First Minister disagrees with the trade unions and workers about the number of job losses. Will she tell us how many jobs she thinks will be lost as a result of the SNP budget?

I have just said that yesterday in this chamber, Kezia Dugdale exaggerated the impact in one council by a factor of three. The figures that she just quoted are not borne out by the reality of council budgets. In Aberdeenshire Council, where Labour is part of the administration, there will be a “minimal impact on jobs”. Argyll and Bute Council says that it is “doing all possible” to keep the impact on jobs to a minimum. Aberdeen City Council, where there is a Labour administration, says:

“we are not looking at job cuts.”

Kezia Dugdale has been caught red-handed exaggerating the position in Clackmannanshire Council. This is important, because these issues are serious and they deserve to be treated seriously. At the last First Minister’s question time, Kezia Dugdale stood up and said that Perth and Kinross Council was going to cut childcare, help for those with additional support needs, early years teachers and maths and English teachers. Perth and Kinross Council set its budget later that same day. It agreed a budget for 2016-17 that has no reduction in early years teachers and no reduction in childcare, that maintains teacher numbers and that does not cut the additional support needs budget—it increases it by 6 per cent.

There is a gulf here between what Labour says in the chamber and the reality of what is happening across the country. Before we go any further with any more claims from Labour, I wonder whether Kezia Dugdale will take the opportunity to retract what she said yesterday about Clackmannanshire and what she said two weeks ago about Perth and Kinross. Both claims were flatly wrong.

The First Minister is trying to deny that there are cuts in education. We have seen 4,000—[Interruption.]

Order. Let us hear Ms Dugdale.

We have seen 4,000 fewer teachers in this country since she came into office. She cannot reprofile that away.

The First Minister did not like hearing the truth from Unite, so let us see what she has to say about the GMB. [Interruption.]

Order.

Gary Smith of the GMB in Scotland, which represents public sector workers—don’t forget that, First Minister—has said:

“Government ministers need to take their heads out of the sand about the devastating impact of the cuts they are making on essential local services right across Scotland.”

That is the reality.

Nicola Sturgeon is the first to line up to set up task forces and summits when jobs disappear in the private sector, but when teachers, classroom assistants and office staff find themselves out of work because of choices that she has made, she is nowhere to be seen. This afternoon, SNP-controlled Dundee City Council will vote on plans to cut the budget for supply teachers, on plans to close the high school and on plans to cut the budget for classroom materials. [Interruption.]

Order.

For a decade, the First Minister has told us that more powers will mean fewer cuts, but when she had the chance to use the powers of this Parliament to stop cuts to schools and save jobs, she bottled it with her austerity budget. How many jobs need to be lost and how many cuts need to be made before this First Minister will finally use the powers that she has? [Applause.]

Order.

Given that I have already demonstrated that what Kezia Dugdale said two weeks ago about Perth and Kinross was wrong and that what she said yesterday about Clackmannanshire was wrong, I think that people should take what she is saying today about Dundee with a pinch of salt.

It is interesting that Kezia Dugdale stands here and complains about a reduction in the number of teachers when yesterday in this chamber she joined forces with the Conservatives against a budget that expressly maintains the number of teachers. That is the blatant hypocrisy of Labour in the chamber.

Kezia Dugdale likes to quote people—well, let me quote a couple of her own colleagues. How about the Labour leader of East Lothian Council, who should be familiar to Iain Gray? Earlier this month, he said:

“Our budget will enable us to invest in the ... future through increased provision for education and promoting the local economy.”

Or we could have the Labour leader of West Lothian Council, who said:

“we have a budget that focuses on and meets the needs of local people whilst protecting services that ... impact on the most vulnerable”.

Or we could go to Aberdeen. The Labour leader in Aberdeen has today joined forces with the Conservatives to issue a letter to every council tax payer there. That letter says that John Swinney’s budget is so dreadful that it has enabled Aberdeen City Council to

“protect frontline services and jobs for the people of Aberdeen”

and progress an

“ambitious”

and

“comprehensive plan which supports Education, new Infrastructure, roads, culture and prevention against flooding.”

Terrible John Swinney, enabling a council to do all of that. [Applause.]

Order. Ms Dugdale.

The First Minister might like to remember that the Green Party—those notable right wingers at the back of the chamber—also voted against her budget yesterday. I will tell her what I voted against—[Interruption.]

Order.

I voted against cuts to jobs, cuts to schools and cuts to local services.

Presiding Officer,

“no politician can be taken seriously about wanting to tackle poverty and inequality, unless they are also prepared to challenge the current Westminster model of austerity.”

Those are not my words; they are Nicola Sturgeon’s words. However, her budget yesterday used this Parliament as a conveyor belt for Westminster austerity. We were faced with a choice between using the powers of this Parliament to invest in the future or imposing more cuts on vital public services. When the First Minister knows that thousands of jobs will be lost and the impact that that will have on generations of young people, why on earth did she choose more cuts?

Not only do Kezia Dugdale’s claims bear no relation to reality, but I have debunked most of the claims that she has made through a reference to the reality in Perth and Kinross, Clackmannanshire and Aberdeen.

I will outline to Kezia Dugdale exactly what she joined with the Conservatives to vote against yesterday. She and her colleagues—arm in arm and shoulder to shoulder with the Tories—voted against the record funding for the national health service; the doubling of the education attainment fund; the increased funding for social care services; the protection of the police budget in real terms; and the protection of apprenticeships. Perhaps most gallingly of all, given everything that the Labour Party has had to say on the issue over the past couple of years, Labour MSPs joined with the Conservatives to vote against a living wage for care workers.

A lot of quotes have been thrown around this chamber today, and I will end with one from Kezia Dugdale herself. When asked this week whether she will come second in the Scottish Parliament elections, Kezia Dugdale said, “Yes”, and I think that we have just seen why.

And I think that even that might be in doubt.

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Prime Minister (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Prime Minister. (S4F-03245)

No plans at present.

I want to return to the growing crisis that is affecting our rural economy and which has been caused by this Scottish National Party Government. Yesterday, I received an email from Jim Walker, the former head of NFU Scotland. In it he said that he might have supported independence but that he

“could never support a party, a Minister or a Government who have been quite so incompetent and frankly naïve.”

He has written an article, to be published tomorrow, in which he says that the NFUS should call for the resignation of the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs, Food and Environment and his director in the civil service.

Here are the facts: our rural economy is currently being starved of £500 million of funding because this SNP Government could not organise a payment system in time—a system that has already run £75 million over budget and still does not work. What will it take for the First Minister to get a grip?

It might be worth pointing out that, in the most recent common agricultural policy negotiations, the Conservatives argued for the scrapping of the direct support for Scottish and United Kingdom farmers that we are talking about today. That is just a contextual point that is perhaps worth bearing in mind.

This is, obviously, an important and serious issue. We are continuing to do everything possible to get instalments out to as many farmers as we can by the end of March and to get the balance of payments out as soon as possible after that. As Richard Lochhead said in portfolio questions yesterday, the number is now approaching 50 per cent. We are reporting progress weekly to the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee and to the industry, and we are in fortnightly discussions about the situation with banks. Of course, when Richard Lochhead spoke to the NFUS, he announced a £20 million hardship scheme so that any farmer who has not had their payment and is not getting support from their bank can apply for hardship payments from the Scottish Government.

It is interesting to reflect on what the chief executive of the Scottish Crofting Federation said about the issue. He said:

“It is heartening to see the Scottish Government dealing with these challenging circumstances in such a creative way and the idea of the government being a lender, whilst not new, shows that they are doing everything they can to address this difficult situation.”

We are doing everything that we can, and we will continue to do so.

The payments were supposed to be made by December, and it is now nearly March. Only the SNP could try to claim that such a failure is some kind of success.

I heard what the First Minister said, but the truth is that, if this was affecting urban Scotland or the central belt, the SNP would be all over it. Because it affects rural Scotland and the Borders, it has slipped off her radar. Let us be clear about this: it is a complete failure of Government, it is damaging people’s livelihoods, it has now cost the taxpayer half of what it cost to build the Parliament building and it is still not fixed.

Jim Walker speaks for thousands of farmers and crofters who are looking for some action. It is clear that the cabinet secretary is part of the problem, not the solution. Is it not time that the First Minister stepped in and took personal charge of ensuring that our rural economy is led out of this crisis?

As I said to Ruth Davidson two weeks ago, the Cabinet has been discussing the matter on a weekly basis.

Ruth Davidson has just said something that is factually inaccurate. The European Union’s window for the payments is 1 December 2015 to the end of June 2016. Therefore, the deadline for payments is actually 30 June 2016—that is the reality. She also talks a load of nonsense about the cost of the information technology system, saying that it will cost half of what the Parliament building cost. It is an IT system to cover the entire seven-year programme of the CAP, and efforts are being made to ensure that it supports the payments.

We will continue to take the responsible action of making sure that we get payments to farmers as quickly as possible while also having the arrangements in place, through the hardship fund that I have spoken about, to ensure that any farmer who does not receive the payment or who cannot get support from their bank can come to the Government for that support. That is the right way to deal with what is a difficult situation, and we will continue to do that.

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Fiscal Framework

To ask the First Minister what progress there has been on the fiscal framework negotiations. (S4F-03262)

Good progress. As I reported to Parliament on Tuesday, there is now an agreement in principle that I think we can recommend to Parliament. Draft heads of agreement will be published by the end of this week. The agreement that we have reached on the block grant adjustment ensures that there will be no detriment for the next six years and that, after that, there can be no default by the United Kingdom Government to a funding model that would deliver detriment. In other words, the deal will not allow a single pound or penny to be taken from our budget but will ensure that the funding for Scotland cannot be changed without our agreement. It protects the Barnett formula and will allow new powers to be delivered.

The First Minister is aware that, when the Deputy First Minister and I served on the Smith commission, we achieved unanimous agreement that the Scottish Government and the UK Government were equal partners in any negotiations. Will the First Minister confirm that that parity of esteem was respected during the fiscal framework negotiations that have just been completed and that it will be maintained? Does she agree that equal partnership in any negotiation is crucial to protect Scotland’s future interests?

I believe that that is absolutely vital. That parity of esteem and equal partnership meant that we were able to resist an attempt by the Treasury to cut our budget by £7 billion. Had we not had that, the Treasury would have been able to impose that cut. Equal partnership meant that John Swinney’s superior negotiating skills could come to the fore and protect Scotland’s budget.

Linda Fabiani raises a serious point about the future. Not only did equal partnership allow us to protect Scotland’s budget; making sure that equal partnership and the requirement for joint agreement are built into the arrangements for the review after the first five years will be essential to ensuring that we can protect Scotland’s budget in the future, which is exactly what we intend to do.

The agreement was rightly welcomed on all sides of the chamber. However, one part of the agreement was getting the Scottish Fiscal Commission to do the official tax forecast, which is a vital step forward. Will the First Minister work with me to convince her back benchers that that is the way to go?

The very thought of working with Gavin Brown is bringing me out in a cold sweat, but I will try to get over that.

As I said on Tuesday, we have had to give and take in the negotiations, which should be welcomed as part and parcel of a mature negotiating process. An area where John Swinney has agreed to a concession is the arrangements for the Fiscal Commission. I know that he has given some detail on that, and more details will be in the heads of agreement when they are published before the end of this week. Overall, it is a good deal, which everybody across the Parliament should welcome.

I congratulate the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister on securing the deal. In the First Minister’s statement on Tuesday, she said that the block grant adjustment would be based on an annual adjustment to a Treasury methodology, which now appears to be tax capacity adjusted levels deduction. Is she absolutely certain that an annual population adjustment to that methodology will produce the same result as per capita indexation?

Yes, and that is critical to the agreement. When the heads of agreements are published, Malcolm Chisholm and everybody else will see that we have agreed to a method of making the block grant adjustment that is required over the transitional period that will deliver the same outcome as per capita indexed deduction.

I take the opportunity to thank Malcolm Chisholm for his support on the issue. Even before Labour’s official position was to support the Scottish Government’s position, Malcolm Chisholm was steadfast in saying that the Scottish Government was correct. His support, along with that of the Scottish Trades Union Congress, for example, and many others was helpful to us in getting to the agreement that we struck on Tuesday. I accord Malcolm Chisholm my thanks for that.

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Accident and Emergency Waiting Times

To ask the First Minister what progress the Scottish Government is making in reducing A and E waiting times. (S4F-03260)

The latest published monthly performance for December 2015 shows that accident and emergency performance across Scotland was at the highest level that we have seen in any December since 2009, and that Scotland is the best performing country in the United Kingdom. For core sites in December 2015, A and E waiting times performance was 94.5 per cent in Scotland compared to 86.6 per cent in England, 76.9 per cent in Wales and 70.9 per cent in Northern Ireland.

However, there is still more to do to ensure continued progress in A and E performance in Scotland. We launched the six essential actions approach in May last year. That two-year programme aims to minimise long waits in A and E and immediate assessment units by improving patient flow throughout all hospital areas and back into the community. We have also provided additional winter funding of £10.7 million to support boards through winter pressures.

I am sure that Parliament would like to thank national health service staff for their hard work and dedication, and for the impressive improvement that we have seen in waiting times, which has been boosted by a 178 per cent increase in the number of A and E consultants under this Scottish Government.

With Scottish A and E performance now clearly the best in the UK—comparing favourably with Labour-run Wales and the NHS in England, where the Tory health minister is too busy picking fights with junior doctors—does the First Minister agree that a partnership approach, as opposed to conflict with health professionals, is key to building on that success? Would the First Minister also welcome health professionals from elsewhere in the UK, should they wish to make a positive choice and bring their skills to the Scottish NHS?

I would certainly welcome health professionals from anywhere who want to come to work in Scotland.

Bob Doris raises points that are important to patients across the country. We have work to do in A and E—I would not for a second stand here and say that it is “job done”. However, two things should give us encouragement. First, our A and E waiting times are, I think, almost week-for-week better than they were in same period last year. Secondly, we see that compared with the UK’s other nations, our A and E departments are performing much more strongly than they are. That is good and positive news, but we will not be at all complacent and will continue to work with health professionals to ensure that we improve performance even further.

I am glad that the First Minister mentioned not being complacent, because last week saw the worst A and E performance in Scotland since weekly statistics began, with one in 10 patients not being treated within four hours and only four health boards meeting their targets. Will the First Minister explain why that happened and will she promise to support our hard-working NHS staff?

Figures fluctuate week on week, and there will be a variety of reasons in different hospitals why that is the case. I think that everybody will understand that.

Jim Hume talked about the most recent weekly performance which, incidentally, saw nine out of 10 patients across our A and E departments being treated within four hours. Obviously that weekly performance was lower than we want, but it was, nevertheless, 3 percentage points better than performance in the same week last year. That underlines the point that I am making: we are seeing consistent improvement in each week compared to the same week in the previous year. That is good. As I said, our accident and emergency units are performing much better than those in any other nation in the UK.

I am standing here giving the information, but that performance is entirely down to the hard work and dedication of the people who work in our accident and emergency units. This is probably an appropriate moment for me to thank them again for all the work that they do.

We all thank the staff for their hard work.

The First Minister mentioned immediate assessment units. A freedom of information request that I have made has shown that there are now 30 such units with 15 different names, that there is no common protocol, and that there is no monitoring and no reporting. Unlike in A and E, targets range from the four-hour target to no target. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde reported that patients

“could expect to wait twelve hours”.

There have been 115 deaths in those units, which are the alternative doorway to A and E.

A and E statistics mean something only if we combine them with statistics from the immediate assessment units. What progress are the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Health, Wellbeing and Sport making on ensuring that there are proper protocols for immediate assessment units so that we can have transparent figures on admissions?

The immediate assessment units—many of which were established under the previous Labour Administration, which is a good thing—are different from A and E units, which is why they are treated differently. Patients in those units often receive treatment and not just the tests and monitoring that they would receive elsewhere. However, the guidance to health boards—this is important—is that patients who are on trolleys awaiting admission in an assessment unit should be monitored against the four-hour A and E target until they are admitted to a bed or a dedicated area.

We are also working with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh to share best practice across the assessment units, including sharing information on monitoring. We will consider with the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh whether assessment units should be subject to more common standards.

Richard Simpson raised the important issue of deaths in hospital. I do not seek to underplay that point but, for context, it is worth pointing out that hospital mortality rates in Scotland are now at their lowest since records began and have dropped by 16.5 per cent since 2007. That is another example of the excellent work that our health professionals around the country do.

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Nursery Education

To ask the First Minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made of the impact of the local authority budget settlement on nursery education. (S4F-03249)

Within the financial settlement for local government, we are funding the additional costs of early learning and childcare provisions under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014. That includes the expansion to 600 hours and the extension to more than a quarter of two-year-olds. So far, we have provided £329 million to fund that expansion and have committed a further £170 million in the 2016-17 budget. That covers the first three years of the expansion from August 2014, and we have committed to continuing to increase revenue funding year on year until 2019-20 to enable local authorities to provide more choice and flexibility.

I will meet local government leaders and key partners this afternoon at the early learning and childcare summit to discuss how we will continue to work together to deliver those commitments.

The First Minister will know that, earlier this month, the Educational Institute of Scotland revealed that in the nine years of Scottish National Party Government the number of teachers in Scotland’s nurseries has fallen by a quarter. Therefore, many of us were intrigued and encouraged by her pledge at the weekend to increase the number of nursery teachers. It is clear why were encouraged, but we were intrigued because, when Ms Sturgeon was first elected in 2007, her party’s manifesto said:

“We are concerned at the removal of nursery teachers from nurseries”

and she pledged to maintain teacher numbers. What has changed? Is it that she did not mean her promise then but means it now, or does she have some other explanation?

The registered day childcare workforce has increased by 7 per cent. [Interruption.]

Order.

Ken Macintosh referred to an announcement made at the weekend. I do not know whether he just missed it, but I actually made that announcement back in October last year.

As part of our effort to ensure that we tackle the attainment gap, I have given a commitment that all nurseries in deprived areas will have an additional teacher or graduate with early learning and childcare expertise working with the young children. That is an important commitment as we not only use the expansion in quantity of childcare but improve the quality of childcare to ensure that we give every young person the best start in life.

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Prestwick Airport

To ask the First Minister what discussions the Scottish Government has had about the relationship between Prestwick airport and the Trump Organization. (S4F-03263)

Prestwick airport operates on a commercial basis. The Scottish Government has had no discussions on the relationship between the airport and the Trump Organization. The senior management team at the airport is responsible for developing business opportunities and we expect it to work closely with local businesses to explore all avenues.

I was pleased to hear Ryanair’s announcement on Tuesday that it will introduce three new routes for winter 2016 and increase passenger numbers at Prestwick by 75,000.

For many years it has been clear—to anybody who cared to take an interest—that Donald Trump is an arrogant and racist bully. When Nicola Sturgeon rightly took the decision to kick him out of the globalscot network, I thought that the Scottish Government had come to regret having ever courted his business. However, it appears that Prestwick airport, which is publicly owned by the Scottish Government, is now pursuing an official partnership—a strategic alliance—with the Trump Organization. Does the First Minister agree that the owner—most especially a Government that exists to serve the public interest—of any business must ensure that that business cuts ties with such a dangerous extremist?

I say first that although I would probably use more diplomatic language, I suspect that my views on Donald Trump are not materially different from Patrick Harvie’s.

It is important to be very clear that there is no contractual relationship between Glasgow Prestwick Airport and Donald Trump or any of his organisations, including Trump Turnberry. European state-aid rules require that the airport is operated on a wholly commercial basis, at arm’s length from the Scottish Government. We are not permitted to intervene in the commercial discussions of the airport.

We brought the airport into state ownership to save it from closure, and it is making progress. As I said in relation to the Ryanair announcement, the management is making progress. It is getting the airport onto a better footing, and I think that we should get behind it as it continues to make those efforts.

We move on to the next item of business. Members who are leaving the chamber should do so quickly and quietly, and people who are leaving the gallery should vacate as quickly as possible. I will give a few moments for that to happen.