26/11/2015 Politics Scotland

Hello and a warm welcome to the Scottish parliament here at

Holyrood. We are by adjusting the Autumn Statement here and there will

be a statement this afternoon. Let us cross to the chamber and find out

what is going on. Speaker of the Pakistani Assembly. We now move to

First Minister's Questions. To us the First Minister what engagements

she has planned today. I will reply to Jeremy Corbyn's e-mail asking me

about questions at prime ministers questions. He says we have achieved

much together. I think he is being modest. He is doing more to destroy

the Labour Party than I ever did. Alongside the Chancellor's misguided

statement yesterday, there were updated or oil figures. They made

the grim reading. Yesterday was a significant day, but so it is

today. It is an important anniversary because two years ago

today, the First Minister published a White Paper on independence. In

that document the First Minister promised a future free from Tory

austerity based on oil revenue of ?8 billion a year at the point of

independence. Come the First Minister say how much oil revenues

are expected to be this year? I have to say on the day after Labour's

part and is in the better together campaign, otherwise known as the

Tories, and at plans to cut the budget in real terms by ?1.5 billion

by the end of this decade. For cosier Dugdale to stand up and speak

about cuts is breathtaking hypocrisy, Presiding Officer. This

is a challenging time for the oil and gas sector which is why the task

force I established earlier this year is working hard to support the

industry at this time, but every time the ball here Labour illegally

crowing about the challenges in the oil and gas sector, what they

realise is how little Labour care about people's and livelihoods. For

Labour, or it is about is getting one over on the SNP. If cosier

Dugdale wants to cast her mind back to the pre-referendum period, it

might give her something else to ruminate on. -- kez the doorbell.

Does she remember when the better together parties told us that the

only way to protect jobs in H MRC was to vote no and can she explain

why after the referendum the UK Government announced plans to slash

these jobs? Perhaps she might want to reflect on that. I was born in

Aberdeen and I grew up in the north-east. I know the damage that

the decline in these industries can cause. Do not question my motivation

when I bring that subject to this chamber. I asked a very specific

question about revenues and the problem for the First Minister is

she was not a wee bit wrong, she did not tell a half-truth, she did not

tell quarter truth, she was not out by a factor of ten, 20 or 30. The

SNP oil figures were wrong by more than a factor of 60 because

according to the OBE are, gas revenues are expected to be ?130

million. Residing officer, people won more than that on the lottery

and we know that from today's and gas survey things will not get much

better any time soon. So can the First Minister tell us where the

SNP's failure lies on oil? Was it their inability to do the numbers or

the inability to tell the truth? The topography is breathtaking because

back in the period that she is talking about, she was in a campaign

with the Conservatives and the Conservative government at the time

were forecasting oil prices to be even higher than was the case on the

part of the Scottish Government. I have to say to Kezia Dugdale I

question the motivation of a party who wanted to leave our finances in

the hands of George Osborne and now they want to complain about cuts.

The choice facing Scotland today is the same as the choice has always

been. Do we allow the Tories to control our finances or do we take

our destiny into our own hands? I know what I prefer. The First

Minister accuses me of the blog received. She is the one that

promised a second oil boom and it will be bad enough if the government

responsible for collecting our taxes have been out by 10% or 20%, but the

First Minister was out by 6000%. 6000% on the money needed to fund

our schools, hospitals and pensions. The government's ability to get

these things right really matters to our future because this parliament

will be responsible for more tax and spending than ever before. We will

have a chance to make different choices and take a break from Tory

austerity. So we can't ever again be in a position where our

government's numbers are so wrong on such a grand scale. What we need is

a real financial watchdog with teeth, not the puppy that John

Swinney is proposing. So will be First Minister back our plan for a

Scottish Office for Budget Responsibility? Well, as Kezia

Dugdale should know if she has bothered to read the draft

legislation, the fiscal commission will have a veto over what John

Swinney brings. The day after George Osborne's budget, a budget that

announced plans to reduce the revenue budget of this parliament by

?1.5 billion in real terms over the remainder of this decade, what does

Kezia Dugdale come here and do? She doesn't criticise the Conservatives,

she wants to play politics with the SNP instead. It is that approach,

being on an arm with the Conservatives whilst this party

stands up for Scotland that has left Labour in the doldrums. If she wants

to know some real facts about the oil and gas sector, she will not

take my word for it. Let us hear what oil and gas UK have had to say

yesterday about the OBE are. They believe there is room for greater

optimism, given the fact that production will increase the first

time in more than a and will continue to increase for the

remainder of the decade. We will get on with the job of supporting the

industry and the Scottish economy, standing up for Scotland against the

Conservatives and we will leave the Labour Party to the slow painful

death that they are currently experiencing. If I wanted real facts

about the work and gas industry, the First Minister is the last person I

would be going to thought it. The idea that you could have a Scotland

with high public spending, lower taxes, a stable economy and

reasonable government debt was wishful a year ago. Now it is

deluded. Those aren't mine berry-macro my words, they are the

words of Alex Bell -- those are not my words, they are the words of Alex

Bell who drafted the White Paper. We are on the cusp of major change.

With new powers heading our way, Scottish politics on the ber be the

same again. This parliament needs in partial independent oversight of

government finances. Scots cannot be let down like this ever again. The

question for the First Minister is this, with all her power and her

majority in this, with all her power and her majority in displays and

eight her ways? I think we will recall that it was not at the recent

Labour Party conference where the word change was emblazoned. Kezia

Dugdale quoted... I am being heckled to say that the Liberal Democrats

need to change their ways and I'm happy to say that. Kezia Dugdale

quoted a former adviser to the Scottish Government. I enjoy this

quote from a former adviser of Kezia Dugdale. If Scottish Labour work out

football team, they would be in division three, struggling to avoid

relegation. That was just before he talked about the stupidity of the

Labour Party under Tech Barack Obama. I am the SNP will continue to

stand up for Scotland and we want leave the Labour Party to where ever

it is they have ended up in Scottish politics. To ask the First Minister

when she will next meet the Prime Minister. I will next meet the Prime

Minister on the 14th of December. Yesterday the Chancellor unveiled

the biggest home building programme the 1970s. Responding, the Scottish

housing body said... Supporting first time buyers onto the property

ladder. It is in marked contrast to what is happening here, where there

are budget reductions of 50% and properties will be less available.

What an utter cheat for a Scottish Conservative to stand in this

chamber the day of the George Osborne's cuts and to utter the work

cuts, it is unbelievable. This government has consistently

supported the help to buy scheme. We have done in partnership with homes

for Scotland and we will continue to do so. John Swinney will outline our

budget plans in this chamber in three weeks' time. I have already

said in the next session of parliament it will be the aim of

this parliament if we are re-elected to build 50,000 affordable homes. We

have a target of 30,000 in this parliament which we are on track to

meet. One of the things I take issue with in terms of the plans announced

by the UK Government yesterday, yes, they are about building homes and I

welcome that, but there is no commitment whatsoever on the part of

the UK Government to building new social homes for people who need to

rent and that says everything about the Tories. They are not interested

in helping the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. All they

are interested in doing is harming them even further. Only the SNP

could find grievance in a 14% increase in the Scottish capital

budget. If we had listened to the First Minister's fiscal autonomy

plans, we would be sitting here with a ?20 billion black hole in

Scotland's finances. If we get back to housing, the truth is that the

number of new homes built each year is down 40% from the time the SNP

took office. 10,000 fewer homes built in Scotland, and we know now

that her ministers are about to half the help to buy scheme in Scotland,

ripping the ?5 million worth of help away from first-time buyers. In

short, this SNP government is slashing support for home-building

and slashing support for home-buying. I know the First

Minister wants to make a point about George Osborne, but there are

thousands of people out there trying their best to get on the housing

ladder. Why is she cutting their support?

Let me pick up Ruth Davidson and the point she made about the capital

budget. She will be well aware of this, I'm sure, but she won't want

the people of Scotland to hear this. Despite the Chancellor yesterday

claiming to increase capital spending, the fact is that

Scotland's capital budget in 2019, 2020, based on yesterday's plans,

will be ?600 million on a 17% lower than Scotland's capital budget was

in the year that's David Cameron became Prime Minister. That is the

reality of the spending plans of this Conservative government. The

point about housing is this. We have helped thousands of people into home

ownership through our help to buy scheme, through our shared equity

scheme, and we will continue to Yesterday, the Chancellor made the

disgraceful decision to pull funding from the development of carbon

capture and storage technology in the UK, which could have created the

world's first commercial scale gas powered plant in Peterhead.

world's first commercial scale gas something else? A cross-party

campaign led by my Liberal Democrat colleague has persuaded the

Chancellor to add ?6 million to mental health spending in England.

Bearing in mind the news this week about child and adolescent mental

health services in Grampian and Tayside, will the First Minister

guaranteed to use the new NHS money for the mental health services here?

Thank you for raising this issue. It is important. He will understand

that John Swinney is due to bring forward his budget in three weeks

and Parliament will hear the government's spending plans in that

budget and we will have a chance to scrutinise and debate those plans.

But he is correct to point to the importance of mental health. He will

be aware that we are already committed to investing an additional

?100 million over the next five years to help equip the health

service to be able to provide the support and treatments that is

needed. That funding will deliver a three-year programme to support the

child and adolescent mental health service workforce, including further

training and more specialised supervisors. It will invest money to

improve mental health support and primary care and also support the

development of innovative approaches in mental health delivery, including

the provision of support for people who need mental health care in

community settings. We are also developing a new improvement

programme which is working with all NHS boards to identify a plan for

how the performance can be improved. We are doing all of that,

but I would say to him that I recognise the need for us always to

be looking to do more. The fact is, more people today are accessing

mental health services. That is a good thing, because we should

encourage people to come forward. When they do, we need to make sure

the NHS is providing the services and treatments they need. I look

forward to the budget in due course, because if I can gently say to the

First Minister, we have heard an awful lot of that before and it is

simply not enough. We asked the health minister in June about the

shocking waiting times back then. He said he had a recovery plan. Since

then, it has actually got worse. 50% of young people in Grampian don't

get seen on time. That rises to a staggering 70% in Tayside. That is

hundreds of teenagers waiting for months to get help. They need it

urgently. Will she access, and I hope she does, that things cannot

carry on like this? Will she gave an early commitment that this new NHS

money will be committed to mental health? As I have said, we will

bring forward the budget plans in our budget. That is a reasonable

thing to say and Willie Rennie well of course have the opportunity to

ask questions when John Swinney outlines the plans to parliament in

three weeks. I am trying to be consensual here because I think it

is an important issue and I am determined that the plans we have

set out under the plans we set out in future will be commensurate to

the scale of the challenge that we face. Willie Rennie spoke rightly

about the number of health boards that are facing significant

challenges and we are establishing an improvement scheme to work with

them to address those challenges. I will not repeat what I have said in

my previous answer about the money that we have committed already over

the next five years, but we are seeing some progress towards what we

need to achieve here. In the last year, we have seen a 4.5% increase

in clinical staff and since 2009, the workforce has increased by more

than one quarter. These are the steps we need to take and we need to

make sure we continue to have the capacity in place in our health

boards to meet the increasing demand for mental health services that the

country is facing. To ask the First Minister what the impact on Scotland

will be of the combined Autumn Statement and Comprehensive Spending

Review. The spending review represents a continuation of the UK

Government's failed austerity programme. As a result of the UK

Government's cuts, funding for day-to-day in Scotland will be cuts

by over ?1.5 billion in real terms. These follow cuts are damaging,

needless and will continue to hit the poorest hardest. What is to be

welcomed from yesterday's statement is the Chancellor's U-turn of a tax

credits. This is a change that we repeatedly called for a few weeks

ago. I called on people to unite to persuade the Chancellor to change

his mind. However, not withstanding that U-turn, the cuts to the welfare

budget or set to continue and we want to scrutinise very carefully

where the axe would from those cuts will fall. I thank the First

Minister for her answer. She will know that last May the Tories

obtained the lowest vote in Scotland since 80 65. Does she agree that was

it makes no economic sense for Tories to have further Scots us cuts

in Scotland, it also shows their contempt for Scottish democracy. I

saw a Flickr of memory at the mention of 1865. Jason Callow is

probably the only member of the Tory benches that still remembers the

heyday of the Scottish Conservatives. I think I just walk

Mr Kiloh up. The Tories are going back to 1865 is what Jackson Kiloh

has just shouted at me across the chamber. Something they went there a

long time ago. Back to the important point. The member raises an

important point. Rather than supporting economic growth and

prosperity, the Chancellor's cuts will undermine the measures this

government is taking to support households and businesses. We will

continue to do everything within our power to protect the most vulnerable

from those austerity measures and that will very much be our focus as

we draw up spending plans ahead of the Scottish Budget next month. Can

I welcome the Chancellor's U-turn on tax credits? The First Minister has

said that the Scottish Government will mitigate against UK austerity

measures. There are of course new powers coming to the parliament, so

can she tell us of any specific measures she will take to combat

Tory austerity? We will bring forward our proposals will budget

and then we will bring forward proposals in our manifesto.

Hopefully label will do the same. Let me tell Jackie Baillie what is

committed already doing to mitigate Tory welfare cuts. We are spending

?104 million this year to make sure nobody has to pay the bedroom tax.

Interestingly, Labour in Wales is not making sure nobody has to pay

the bedroom tax. We set up the Scottish welfare fund. We are

supporting advice agencies to give people the advice that they need.

This government will continue to do everything we can to help the most

vulnerable in the face of further cuts from the Conservatives. We will

leave Jackie Baillie over the next few months to continue to argue that

instead of investing in our public services, in our economy, in support

for the vulnerable, we should be spending ?167 billion on Trident

nuclear weapons. She seems to be in a manner it of one in her own

benches these days, which says it all about the stupidity of this

position she takes. Can be First Minister tell us what level of

budget cuts will now be faced by those, had we followed the SNP's

policy of full fiscal autonomy. What can you say to the hypocrisy? Its

knows no bounds. Can I just remind the chamber of what more Joe Fraser

and all his colleagues in the Tory and Labour benches said before?

Before the referendum? We had to vote no to protect welfare. Now, ?12

billion has been cut from the welfare budget. We had to vote no to

protect Scotland's's budget. Yesterday, 6% real terms cuts to the

Scottish revenue budget over the remainder of this decade. I will

continue to make the case that it is better to control our own resources

with independence than it ever will be to leave our resources in the

hands of Murdo Fraser and his colleagues. To ask the First

Minister whether the Scottish Government will hold an inquiry into

undercover police operations in Scotland. The office of surveillance

Commissioners which carries out annual inspections of police

Scotland's undercover activities has never raised an issue with Scottish

ministers. The Scottish Government is take all allegations of police

impropriety seriously, and should there be evidence of such activity,

I can assure the chamber that appropriate action will be taken. Of

course, the government has already taken a range of action to ensure

strong safeguards are in place regarding undercover activity.

Theresa May has established a pitch that enquiry to examine the role of

undercover policing in England and Wales since 96 D8. As policing is

devolved, Scotland is not included in the enquiry. Following

yesterday's revelations on Scotland's monitoring of their

sources, and of the undercover officer who monitored the G8 summit,

there is now growing concern about the role of undercover police past

and present. Is the First Minister seriously telling us that under a

Tory Home Secretary, there will be an enquiry in England, but under her

leadership, the truth and justice will not be offered to victims in

Scotland? The difference... The difference is this, which actually I

am pretty sure Neil Findlay knows about. A Majesty 's Inspectorate of

Conservatory Boylan on Wales produced a report in 2030 which

recommended actions to ensure strong safeguards in place regarding

undercover activity. But the office of surveillance Commissioners

carries out annual inspections of Scotland's activity and has never

raised an issue. Either directly with Scottish ministers or through

its annual report about police Scotland or about the legacy in

relation to undercover activity. If these concerns are raised with us,

of course we will act appropriately and of course we will carefully

consider the conclusions of the Pitchford enquiry. If there are

measures that can be delivered in Scotland sensibly, we will discuss

it with police Scotland and other interested stakeholders how they

might best be permitted. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish

Government is doing to eradicate abuse of patients in care homes. No

care home residents should ever be subject to any form of harm and

abuse, and it should be remembered that the vast majority of care homes

deliver high quality care to the residents. The care Inspectorate

investigates complaints against registered care homes and carries

out a rigorous inspection programme. Complaints about registered social

are investigated. Through our current health Bill, we are

legislating to bring forward a new offence of wilful neglect, and that

will improve grid powers and complaints procedures and ensure

effective legal action can be taken against a care worker or care

provider wherever necessary. I thank the First Minister for that answer.

The chief executive of Scottish care is reported to offset the rise in

abuse allegations referred to in an article in the Sunday Post might be

down to a greater awareness of how to report issues. Notwithstanding

this, does she agree that abuse in any circumstances cannot be

tolerated and that the increased frailty and demands a care home

residents demands a workforce that is better trained and paid? I agree.

I completely agree that abuse in any circumstances cannot be tolerated.

Can somebody stop shouting across the chamber? Should it occur, I will

make clear that we expect employers, the care Inspectorate and the

Scottish 's social services Council to take a very firm approach,

improving workforce skills and recruiting and retaining the correct

people is essential. These are key areas for development and strategy

and we are also working with the SSSC to further progress of work

practices. There we have it. The close of questions to the First

Minister. The subject arising out of the Chancellor's Autumn statements,

rather vigorous attack that he made on the subject of oil and oil

revenues. Equally vigorous attacks today coming from the First Minister

's opponents. She chose to attack herself, accusing opponents of

hypocrisy on the subject of cuts. We will have more on the topic of

spending in the statement from John Swinney this afternoon. Catch-up

with that on the BBC. I will hand you over to the daily politics.

to go and get what people wanted from Parliament, in terms of Acts

of Parliament, etc, to argue within Government for the right budget.

There could be any number of reasons why reforming or chaging

It is as an institution, held in very high regard by the public.

It could be health care professionals, think Resistant to

change because they think they understand how it works,

Or could it be something to do with politicians themselves?

You do some things at the start that you probably wouldn't do at the end.

And you definitely do some things at the end that you definitely

For me, for example, I went through a journey, personally, where you are

trying to stabilise the system because it felt out of control, so

you set a lot off targets and did a lot of performance management and

then you come to the realisation that that only gets

you part of the way because what you have to do, you actually have to

devolve power and give it away.