Plenary, 26 Jan 2006

Meeting date: Thursday, January 26, 2006

Official Report 726KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

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Cabinet (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S2F-2072)

Next week's Cabinet will discuss issues that are important to Scotland.

Last week, the First Minister confirmed that increases in Forth bridge tolls are still firmly on the agenda of his Labour-Liberal Government. Will he therefore explain why, on Monday of this week at Labour's by-election campaign launch, Gordon Brown again publicly misled the public by stating that any toll increases are dead in the water?

I have made clear the position on the issue in the past week. As stated last Thursday and since then, the position is that we have a set of proposals from the local councils in the area that make up the transport authority for the bridge. We have to consider those proposals, following the due process that is set out in the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001. We will do that properly, but we also need to make a decision about the current condition of the existing road bridge. The report that we have commissioned on that is due to be with us by the end of this month. We intend to consider the report and make a decision on the bridge before we make a decision on the tolls.

As I said last week, the proposal for a £4 toll, which is the largest proposed increase, does not receive support in Fife or, I believe, anywhere else. This morning, Tricia Marwick again made points that were contradictory to the negotiations of Mr Salmond. Other members must answer for their policies. If the Scottish National Party is in negotiations with the Green party for Government after the 2007 elections, does it support the Green party's proposals to support the toll proposals in their entirety?

The SNP's position is clear: we think that a £1 toll is enough. The position of Labour and the Liberals is many things but, frankly, clear is not one of them. On Monday, Gordon Brown said:

"The whole proposal is dropped".

I remind the First Minister that the proposal that Gordon Brown was talking about is for variable tolls—there would be £4 tolls at some times and £3 or £2 tolls at other times. Gordon Brown said on Monday that all of that had been dropped. Is it not the case that, if Gordon Brown is telling the truth, the First Minister should be able to stand up right now and rule out any increase in tolls? If the First Minister cannot do that, Gordon Brown is clearly not telling the truth. Which is it?

There is clearly a problem with hearing in the chamber. The position has not changed since I outlined it last Thursday or since the Minister for Transport and Telecommunications and my official spokesperson outlined it last Wednesday. We have an important decision to make on the future of the Forth road bridge. We have a report from the Forth Estuary Transport Authority, which indicates that the current condition of the road bridge is serious and that therefore traffic on it might have to be limited by the early part of next decade and that subsequently it may have to be closed. We have commissioned a technical survey to find out whether that information is accurate and what solutions there might be. That will allow us to make a decision about the future of the bridge and to ensure that there remains a crossing over the Forth for the people of Fife and others in the north-east and south of Scotland who use the bridge at present and who would use it in the future. We will make that decision before we respond to the Forth Estuary Transport Authority on its proposals for increased tolls. The proposal for the top increase in tolls to be to £4 does not have support in Fife or anywhere else, but we must ensure that we follow due process and make rational decisions at the end of the day.

Let us get this clear: when Gordon Brown said that

"The whole proposal is dropped",

he was not telling the truth. I understand the First Minister's position, although I think that it is wrong. He backs higher tolls—that is the Labour and Liberal position. Will he now tell the chancellor to stop trying to mislead the people of Fife? Does he agree that, especially in a week in which 700 of those people have lost their jobs, they deserve a lot more honesty from the Labour Party?

I am sure that everyone in the chamber would want to express their sympathy to those who are affected by the announcement this week of redundancies in Fife. Our absolute priority is to ensure that those individuals and their families are able to rely on continuing employment—as happened in similar circumstances in other parts of Scotland—and the action that we are able to take to secure not only new jobs but training and other opportunities for those affected. We will take that responsibility seriously and we will ensure that action is in place right away to help them.

To return to the issue of the tolls, our position is absolutely clear. We have a proposal from the local transport authority, which we will consider seriously, because there is a need to consider the current crossing over the Forth and ensure that the people of Fife and others have a road crossing over the Forth for years and years to come. That is a far more consistent position than that of a political party—the Scottish National Party—that advocates in its national policies, and indeed in manifestos, that it supports road tolling and congestion charging, yet, whenever anybody comes up with a proposal anywhere in the country to increase anything by any more than a penny, is opposed to that proposal because it cannot face up to the consequences of having to justify it. That is sheer hypocrisy, sheer dishonesty and an attempt to deceive voters. It is not credible and it is one of the reasons why the SNP's support in every election since the Parliament was created has gone down while others have managed to stay in Government.

It seems that Labour politicians leave any notion of the truth behind them when they cross the Forth bridge into Fife. The First Minister says that a proposal is still on the table, yet Gordon Brown insists on repeating that that proposal has been dropped. Most people would describe that quite simply as a lie. The question for the First Minister is: will he condemn it or does he condone it?

I hesitate to say, yet again—for about the fifth time—what the Executive's position is. I stand by that position, but I also demand that Opposition parties are clear about their own policies. The SNP cannot negotiate with and sidle up to the Green party, proposing a coalition Government that would include actions such as congestion charging and road tolls, and then come along here and say that it would oppose every one of the measures that the Green party would propose. It cannot have one policy in the first week of January and a different policy in the third week of January, just because there is a by-election. The SNP should be more honest; it should answer the question and tell us what it really thinks.

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Prime Minister (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Prime Minister and what issues they will discuss. (S2F-2073)

I have no immediate meetings planned with the Prime Minister, but I would certainly advise him and his parliamentary colleagues to avoid in future attending—as one of them has done in recent weeks—the "Celebrity Big Brother" house.

No doubt, that is sound advice. I hope that, when the First Minister next meets the Prime Minister, he will ask the Prime Minister to tell his colleagues at Westminster to keep their noses out of devolved party business.

When it comes to apportioning blame for the signalled £4 toll on the Forth bridge, should not we start with the Labour, Liberal Democrat and SNP members of the Parliament, who voted for the charging schemes and the establishment of the Forth Estuary Transport Authority under the Transport (Scotland) Act 2001 that have resulted in the current position? The First Minister described that as "due process". Is not it the very granting of those powers that has led directly to the proposal for a £4 toll?

I have one very short answer to that. I quote the Conservative candidate in the current by-election, which no doubt will be mentioned in the chamber again over the next fortnight:

"I think we should look at building a new toll bridge"

for the Forth.

Something with which the First Minister is not familiar and to which the Scottish Executive is a stranger is a position that my party enjoys, called clarity of position. Unlike the First Minister and his Executive colleagues—not to mention his so-called friends at Westminster—my party has made it clear that, in so far as the existing bridge is concerned, we consider that the existing toll should not be raised at this time. [Interruption.] We have also made it clear that we are prepared to face up to what is now the clamant need of the communities of Fife for a new Forth crossing.

And the question? [Interruption.]

I think that, despite the hubbub, I am entitled to try to respond to the point that the First Minister made. Our clear position is that we will not apologise for a possible model that includes tolling if that provides—

Tolling!

There is no secret about that. We will not apologise for that model if it provides an answer—[Interruption.]

You must go for a question, Miss Goldie.

The First Minister may try to shirk his direct responsibility and that of his Labour and Liberal Democrat colleagues for the proposal. However, having set up the grouping that allowed three Labour and two Liberal Democrat councillors to push for a £4 toll, does he accept that that would be a congestion charge? Does he support the application of a congestion charge or is he in the dead-in-the-water camp, which is led by Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling?

I have made clear my view on the current proposal and I have also made clear the view that we take on the decisions that we now have to make. However, I make a number of things clear in response to Annabel Goldie's statement. There is a role for tolls on bridges and, from time to time, for tolls on roads for congestion charging purposes. In relation to bridges, there is a role for tolls to pay for maintenance and perhaps even for replacement.

However, when ministers make decisions on those matters, they have to do so reasonably. That is why we commissioned, for the Forth crossing, a technical survey of the evidence that we received from the transport authority. That survey will ensure that the evidence is accurate and that all the solutions have been looked into. When we receive the technical survey we will be in a position to make, we hope very quickly, a decision in principle about the future of the crossing over the Forth. We will do that on the basis of sound evidence. That is a responsible position for a Government to take.

We will then make a decision on the proposal from the Forth Estuary Transport Authority about its plans to increase tolls on the existing bridge. It would be wrong to make a decision on that proposal before we know what we might be faced with in terms of the financial challenge associated with maintaining the current bridge and, perhaps, building a new one. The series of decisions will be made responsibly by Executive ministers. I give one absolute guarantee. Whatever solution we devise for the Forth crossing—be it a road bridge or otherwise—and whatever regime we put in place to pay for that, it will be an awful lot better than the tolling regime that the previous Conservative Government put in place on the Skye bridge, which we have now abolished.

Miss Goldie, you may ask a further question only if it is very brief.

The First Minister's response, frankly, is cop-out and delay. His dilemma is that he is hoist with the petard of what his colleagues and back benchers want. His colleague Christine May implied that he is in the dead-in-the-water camp. He has colleagues from Westminster telling him what to do. My final question to him is this. In the midst of the bruising that he is getting from all quarters, does he agree that this degrading public spat must stop and that he must state the official Scottish Executive position on the £4 toll? People in Fife want to know the Executive's position now.

I credit the people of Fife with some intelligence. I believe that they will understand, when we make decisions on the future of the crossing over the Forth, that we need to do so in the light of the full evidence, that we need to make a responsible decision, that there will be a need to pay for whatever work is required, and that we therefore need to make a decision on tolls. We will do so without imposing unreasonably on them or anybody else and in a way that ensures that we have thought through the options and have made a responsible decision. That is precisely what we were elected as ministers to do, and it is precisely what we will do.

The Opposition parties are clamouring for an early decision, even though the decision timetable was clearly laid out in advance of the writ being moved for the current parliamentary by-election. If we announced today that we were definitely going ahead with a new non-tolled bridge over the Forth, people would rightly accuse us of saying that only because of the by-election. We have taken a hard and tough position to ensure that our decisions are responsible and sustainable. We will stick to that position for the next fortnight.

Before I take two supplementary questions that are of regional importance, members will wish to welcome the Ambassador of Austria, Her Excellency Dr Gabriele Matzner-Holzer. [Applause.]

I am certain that the First Minister shares the concern of the people of Fife about Lexmark's decision to close its factory at Rosyth. Will he send the message to all agencies across Scotland that top priority must be given to arranging immediate meetings with Scott Barrie and me and to making available additional support and finance to support the relocation into other jobs of all those concerned? Will he also confirm that, in the next round of relocation of Government agencies, the constituencies in Fife will be at the front of the queue for those relocated jobs?

Those are important points, and I am sure that those meetings can be organised. However, I repeat that it is appropriate on occasions such as this to think primarily about the affected individuals and families and to secure their continuing employment, preferably in their local areas. The rapid reaction teams that we put in place have worked well in recent years. We all know about Motorola, which is across the Forth in West Lothian. Although 3,000 jobs were lost there, the unemployment rate in that area 12 months later was lower than it had been when the announcement of job losses was made because of the actions taken by Scottish agencies to ensure that local people had alternatives. That is exactly the kind of response that we will put in place in Fife. I welcome Helen Eadie's and Scott Barrie's support for all that we are doing.

As I said during the first debate this morning, while it will not be of much comfort to the workers at Lexmark, I am sure that everyone's sympathy is with them and their families at this difficult time.

Will the First Minister give more specific details about the targeted measures that have been put in place to help the workers? Does he understand that the closure of Lexmark and the loss of 700 jobs come on top of the loss to the Fife economy of 7,000 manufacturing jobs since 1998? Will the loss of the 700 jobs at Lexmark in Rosyth at last shake the Executive out of its complacency over a manufacturing sector in Fife that is failing before its eyes? What does he intend to do about that?

There are different parts to that question. First, it is important to stress that the workers at Lexmark have excellent skills and have proven that they are good workers. Therefore, in supporting them we signal to other companies and potential employers that they deserve to be employed. Our agencies will work closely with those individuals, with the bodies that are responsible locally and with private companies to ensure that the workers have the maximum employment opportunities and, critically, training opportunities so that they have the best possible chance of finding continuing employment. We have done that successfully elsewhere in Scotland, and we will do it in Fife.

Secondly, although Bruce Crawford has quoted the figures that suit him, it is important to note that employment in Fife has increased by 11 per cent since 1997. Scotland's employment rate remains the highest in the United Kingdom. That is precisely because we have the right policies to secure people continuing employment with new skills and opportunities. These are difficult times, with global downturns in certain industries and jobs moving to areas in which conditions of employment are significantly poorer and costs are significantly lower than they are in Scotland. That is the case because people are paid scandalously low wages in some other countries that are clearly outwith the European Union and it is therefore difficult for us to influence the conditions under which people there work.

Here in Scotland, however, our role—and one of the key reasons for having this Parliament—is to grow Scottish companies and not rely as much as we did in the past on companies coming to Scotland from overseas, although their investment is still important. Our role is to grow our own companies so that they export more goods and expand into other countries and markets. That is our strategy—it succeeds increasingly and we continue to back it.

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Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland and what issues he intends to discuss. (S2F-2075)

I meet the Secretary of State for Scotland regularly and clearly we discuss issues that are very important to Scotland.

Will the First Minister reaffirm his previous statement that a decision on nuclear power stations would not be considered as long as the problem of nuclear waste remained unresolved? He referred to waiting to see the recommendations from the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.

The First Minister might be aware that paragraph 64 of an outline draft of the CORWM report, which is published on the CORWM website, states:

"If Ministers accept our recommendations, the UK's nuclear waste problem is not solved. Having a strategy is a start. The real challenge follows."

Will he confirm that he would not give the go-ahead to new nuclear power stations based on that CORWM conclusion?

Shiona Baird asked me first to confirm our existing position and then to contradict it, so I will not do that.

Our position is clear: we will not consider the possibility of new nuclear power stations in Scotland until such time as the waste issue is resolved. We expect the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management to report later this year. We await that report with some interest and will consider it carefully. At that point, we will consider what to do next about nuclear power.

I hope that the First Minister appreciates that we are discussing a serious issue that should not be sidestepped, nor should people sit on the fence. Is he aware that, according to Nirex, if the UK goes for the much-touted 10 new AP1000 reactors, there will be a 300 per cent increase in high-level nuclear waste? That represents a rise from 7,000 to 28,000 containers of high-level waste. Does he agree that we have no right to be so irresponsible in creating so much more waste for future generations to deal with?

What Shiona Baird says justifies our position, which is that we need to deal with the waste issue before we consider the position in relation to nuclear power stations. She highlights the crucial importance of the situation and that is why we have taken such a responsible attitude to it.

I do not often listen to the radio on Thursday morning, but this morning I heard the spokesperson for the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management say that he felt that his committee had an absolute duty to ensure that our generation considers the situation rather than leaves it to future generations. That is a very responsible approach. I am sure that the committee will have a responsible attitude to its report, and it would be responsible of us to wait until we get that report before we decide what to do next.

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Skills Improvement

To ask the First Minister what action is being taken to improve the skills of Scotland's workforce. (S2F-2076)

The Scottish Enterprise network and the colleges and universities funded by our Scottish Government are working with the employer-led sector skills councils to ensure we have the right skills for Scotland. We are investing in vocational education, modern apprenticeships, business and individual learning accounts and other programmes.

What are the First Minister's views on the role of human resource development and careers services in the work of Scotland's economic development and regeneration agencies, and what are his expectations in that regard as a result of the current review of the structure of the enterprise network, which currently incorporates Careers Scotland?

As we debate regularly in this chamber, in order to secure improved economic growth for Scotland, we need to have investment in infrastructure, including the right investment in physical infrastructure. Secondly, we need to grow Scottish businesses and to promote their work overseas. Our enterprise network has a role in assisting with the key growth areas in that regard, but it also has a role in relation to skills.

It is through the skills of the people of Scotland and through their ability to be flexible and innovative and to apply those skills to the modern world that we will succeed and will continue to have jobs in Scotland as part of the very challenging global market. Scottish Enterprise has a continuing role to play in that, but it is also right that Scottish Enterprise is discussing the role of Careers Scotland and careers guidance within the overall framework.

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Public Sector (Employment)

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive is satisfied with the number of people employed in the public sector. (S2F-2079)

Although we are determined to ensure the most efficient delivery of public services, I believe that the additional nurses, teachers, police officers and others who have been employed in Scotland since devolution were needed and are making a difference.

Does the First Minister agree that it is absolute nonsense for the Confederation of British Industry, The Scotsman or anyone else to claim that public sector workers make no contribution to the economy? What chance is there of building a smart, successful economy if there are not enough teachers? What chance is there of a healthy, efficient workforce if there are not enough doctors and nurses? Will the First Minister step up his efforts to employ more essential workers—such as doctors, nurses and teachers—to improve standards in health and education and improve our economic performance?

Dennis Canavan makes a valid point. Improved health in Scotland is vital for improved economic performance, as are improvements in education, led by investment not only in our schools, but in our universities and colleges. However, private sector jobs are also important for improved economic performance, and I am proud of the fact that two thirds of the 200,000 additional jobs that we have created over the past several years have been in the private sector. In addition to all the extra nurses, teachers, police officers and people working in the community to help the most vulnerable people in our society, twice as many jobs are now available in private companies in Scotland. That is a good thing; it is one of the reasons why our economic growth was yesterday recorded as being higher than that south of the border.

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Prisoners (Automatic Early Release)

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive intends to end automatic early release for prisoners. (S2F-2080)

Yes. The present, discredited system of automatic early release will end. We will build on the Sentencing Commission's report, which was published on Monday, and will publish our proposals in the late spring before introducing a sentencing bill in the summer.

I thank the First Minister for that welcome response.

Does the First Minister agree that the commission's report should be welcomed because its broad thrust is in line with what the Liberal Democrats have been calling for? Some recommendations, however, will require close scrutiny, particularly those relating to ministerial powers. Does he also agree that, if the recommendations for part-custody, part-community sentences are to be effective for safer communities and the rehabilitation of individuals, our community justice authorities must have proper resources and programmes?

I strongly welcome the Liberal Democrats' support for the Executive's proposal to implement the end of automatic early release, and I particularly welcome Jeremy Purvis's continuing support for a tough approach on crime.

Crime is a serious issue. A consistent and clear system of sentencing is needed, in which people have confidence—particularly victims and witnesses who come forward to report crimes or assist the authorities. That is why we will introduce a new system. Sentences will be clearer and will be applied to the individuals who receive them. Such an important change will be welcomed throughout Scotland. I hope that the legislation will be in place within this parliamentary session, as we promised. In that way, we will complete the current package of justice reforms that I believed were essential in 2003.

Will the First Minister confirm that he supports the Sentencing Commission's recommendation that ministers should have a say in when all prisoners are released from jail?

Our proposals will be published in the spring. We will need to examine in detail some of the specific proposals made by the Sentencing Commission. Additional safeguards for the public may be included in the proposed bill. We may also find elements of the Sentencing Commission's proposals to be inconsistent with our position. The full proposals will be published in the spring and the bill will be introduced in Parliament in the summer. We hope that it will be passed and that the legislation will be in place by the end of the parliamentary session.

Meeting suspended until 14:15.

On resuming—