 Curious about the impact that that will be on them and by, not simply the Scottish Prison Service but also by the Scottish Court Service who ultimately would have to engage and deal with matters? Thank you. Now moved to First Ministers Q1. Jo-an Lomont. Thank you very much Minister to ask the First Minister what engageiary council has planned for the rest of the day. First Minister. Engageğlants to take forward the Government programme for Scotland. Jo-an Lomont. Excellent and you know we are always delighted First Minister keeps his eye on the ball. The Scottish Government has missed its 18-week waiting time target from referral to treatment. It is still, month after month, fails to hit its target of treating A and E patients within four hours, even after diluting the target, and bed blocking, which means people are left languishing in beds because the care system is nowhere for them to go has gone up 300 per cent. Then it chases now going backwards on his watch. Can the First Minister remind us why does he still have confidence in his health secretary, Alex Neil? First Minister. John Lamont has started off by saying that we are always delighted. Somehow the phrase delighted and John Lamont does not square it for First Minister's questions. The NHS and all of us should agree is facing substantial challenge. It is treating many more patients and all of us agree that the people who work in the NHS are doing a tremendous job for Scotland. We always want to do better and a lot of the statistics need to be improved. That is what we intend to do. I think that we should just remember two things. Firstly, the satisfaction levels with the NHS in Scotland, according to the patients, the people who experience treatment in the NHS, are at a very, very high level indeed. Secondly, if we compare the statistics that were released this week with what was happening when John Lamont was a minister, we can see very substantial improvement. Since she mentioned accident emergency in particular, can I remind the Labour benches that Andy Kerr, then the health minister, was delighted with a performance of 87 per cent in the health service? The figures that John Lamont is complaining about are now 93 per cent. Yes, substantial room for improvement but it does seem passing strange that the Labour Party was delighted with 87 per cent when they are in office but condemned 93 per cent when the SNP is in office. John Lamont, can I promise the First Minister that I will be delighted when he stops displaying such disgraceful complacency about what is happening in the NHS, because it is patients and others who are expressing concerns, not simply politicians. It would appear that although the First Minister says that he is reflecting on those statistics, he actually does not believe them because he shows that the NHS under his watch is failing. Will he listen then to the professionals? To the professionals, Dr Clifford Mann, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, said and I quote, "...the college has been warning for some time now about extreme pressure in the unscheduled healthcare system. These are most evident in the A and E departments and create sometimes overwhelming challenges." The British Medical Association Scotland said, while the Government is painting a picture of a well-staffed NHS, the reality is that doctors are working under extreme pressure and workforce shortages and high vacancy rates are significant contributing factors to this. Last week we found that only 67 people in this chamber had confidence in his health secretary. Isn't it the case that they might be the only 67 people in this country who trust him on health? I regard, with great interest, the comments of health professionals wherever they come from. However, when we are looking at emergency medicine, surely the key comment that we should consider are those of Dr Jason Long, who is chair of the College of Emergency Medicine in Scotland. He has said in the 28th of May, which is this year, that the college continues to support the Scottish Government's investment in commitment to the specialty of emergency medicine and the work of emergency departments in Scotland. There is a substantial body of opinion, which indicates and let me quote Dr Martin McEchnie, the vice-chair of the College of Emergency Medicine, that we have had a lot of support and investment in the last 18 months in the Government, and we are beginning, I hope, to feel and see the effects of some of those changes. Those are medical professionals at the front end of accident and emergency, who are commenting on the emergency care plan that has been implemented by the health secretary, which has brought about an improvement to 93.3 in the latest accident and emergency statistics. That is to say the people who are treated within four hours. John Lamont said that I was complacent about those things. In the first part of my answer, I dealt in some measure with saying that we are seeing and looking to improve those statistics further. That is our aim and intention in the health service. I think that it is fair to reflect, comparing that 93.3 per cent, the latest figure for March 2014, that in April 2006, a performance of 87.5 per cent was hailed by the then health minister, Andy Kerr, as quote, shows that the vast majority of accident and emergency departments are meeting the four-hour target. Investment and reform in the national health service is paying off. I would suggest, if we are looking for complacency, that the Government of which John Lamont was a member was complacent in 2006, whereas this health secretary is putting in the investment to improve things in 2014. John Lamont? Maybe we should remind the First Minister that it took an elderly man to have his photograph on the front page of the daily record waiting on a trolley before the emergency plan was put in place. The fact of the matter is, and we have evidence again, the First Minister will quote people who agree with him. He does not listen to people who are telling him that there are real problems. The First Minister can trade statistics, analyse and talk about the past. He does not seem to realise that this is about real people. I shall in confidence supply him with the details of a patient whose partner wrote to us and wants her experience to be known but wishes to remain anonymous. As color Mary, she went to her GP with a lump on her breast. Her GP referred her as a priority to the Royal Alexandra hospital for cancer screening. No appointment came. In pain with the lump growing, she went to the accident and emergency unit only to be told that she could not be treated because she was on a pathway, or rather waiting for an appointment. She did not get an appointment within the Government target and, after weeks of worrying, was forced to pay for private healthcare as the lump grew. That is a distressing reality of what missing targets mean for patients. Can the First Minister tell Mary and all the real people who make up the statistics that he is trying to play down? Why should they have confidence in his NHS? Any case that is referred to me or to the health sector will be treated seriously and no one has ever claimed that every patient receives ideal treatment from our national health service or indeed any national health service. However, our national health service in Scotland is something still of which we can be really proud. If we want to look at patient experience, we should also consider the balance of the patient opinion website, where patient after patient reflects on the excellent treatment that they have received from our national health service. It is a very important innovation in my estimation because, in the nature of human affairs, it is often where people have failed and the national health service has failed to deliver excellence of treatment that has come to public attention. Therefore, I think that it is important that the patient opinion website gives the balance of opinion of the many hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens who year on year receive excellent treatment from our national health service. John Lamont complains when I reflect that the statistics that we are seeing now, although not ideal and in some cases still to meet the targets to which we aspire, in every single case are superior to those when the Labour Party left office in 2007. What the Labour Party said in 2007, quote from the manifesto, healthcare across Scotland has never been better. Waiting times are the lowest ever, despite a big increase in operations. We have had more big increases in operations and attendancies since, and waiting times are better than when the Labour Party left office. The central position in political terms that the Labour Party has to answer is why were they patting themselves in the back when they were in office, then attacked the SNP now when every single part of the health service is performing to higher standards. John Lamont? Like the First Minister, of course we recognise the good things that are happening in the NHS and we celebrate them, but the problem with the First Minister, he wants to ignore the problems that are emerging rather than tackling them, because we want to make progress, we want to get better under his watch, we are going backwards. The First Minister says that he is not complacent, yet he ignores his own statistics and failed targets, he ignores the first-hand views of the experts and professionals, and most damningly he ignores the lived reality of patients in Scotland. The First Minister is in denial about the pressures on the NHS on his watch and the failures in patient care. The fact is that he is more at home in the imagined world, after a yes-fort, rather than the real world of life under the SNP Government. For those waiting in A&E, for those waiting for treatment, for those waiting in pain, will the First Minister admit that he is failing to manage our NHS and get on with the day job that patients across Scotland so desperately need him to do? As I pointed out, I could go on to outpatient wait, referral to treatment wait, as well as accident and emergency. On every single one of these measures, on the watch of this Government, treatment in the national health service has improved. Johann Lamont says that things are getting worse. They are much better in every single one of those statistics than they were when the Labour Party was in office. Johann Lamont was a Government minister. Let me tell you what has happened to the national health service in this watch. National health service staff, despite the cutbacks from Westminster, have increased under the SNP, staffing up by 6.7 per cent. We are protected in real terms, the front-line NHS budget, something that the Labour Party blirred and pledged to do in Scotland and have not done in Wales. Patient satisfaction, real people in the national health service, 87 per cent of patients are satisfied with local health service, up by 7 per cent in the watch of the SNP. Cleaner hospitals, Cdiff and Patients aged over 65, reduced by 83.8 per cent. Remember when Jackie Bailey said that we were going to be the health infection centre of the world and then discovered she was talking about what happened under the Labour Government and abolishing cost and prescription charges in the national health service from April 2011, aspiring to the original foundation principles that the health service is available to all, regardless of income. All of these things have happened under the SNP. A health service, a national health service, a public service for all, protected by the SNP, neglected by Labour in Wales and every single one of these statistics better than when Johann Lamont was in office. To ask the First Minister when he'll next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. Yesterday morning, John Swinney was asked 11 times what the set-up costs of an independent Scotland would be and he was unable to answer. Within three hours, the First Minister conjured up a figure of £250 to £300 million. So can the First Minister break down that figure for us today by department so we can see exactly how that number was reached? The £200 million figure that I quoted came from Professor Dunlevy of the London School of Economics. Why he came into the press conference yesterday was because he was cited over the weekend by Ruth Davidson's colleagues in the United Kingdom Government as the expert who could estimate the set-up costs that we would be likely to face when we established departments of an independent Scotland. The figure of £2.7 billion was cited by the UK Government. Unfortunately, Professor Dunlevy found out that his name was being taken in vain and embarked on a series of comments describing the £2.7 billion figure as bizarrely inaccurate, accusing the Treasury of badly misrepresenting LSE research, creating that it appears to take minimum white haul reorganisation and multiply by 180 agencies overstating by 12 times. He says that the Treasury figures are bizarrely inaccurate and then made an estimate of the cost to £200 million for this set-up cost. So all I would say to Ruth Davidson, apart from the basic unwisdom of introducing Professor Dunlevy into this question time, if the chosen expert of the United Kingdom Government comes up with an estimate and I describe it as reasonable, isn't that a way to go forward as opposed to misrepresenting his work, overstating it by 12 times and attempting to reduce the reputation of the London School of Economics? The First Minister wants to talk about Professor Dunlevy, so let's talk about Professor Dunlevy, because he wrote a blog yesterday and I have it here. He says that the Financial Times asked him about set-ups costs, which he gave in his own words a guestimate, which again in his own words only covers white haul reorganisations and not whole-scale new policy systems. So I think the First Minister would be in much stronger territory challenging the Treasury's figures if he could come up with his own. We've got 100 days to go and the SNP's case seems seriously to be resting on a guestimate by a professor responding to a pressing fight. Let us hear Ms Davidson. I find it worrying that the First Minister has no intention of telling the people of Scotland how his paperclip economics adds up. The fact is that he should have the numbers, because two years ago the Finance Secretary said that he would set out detailed set-up costs. Let me quote from paragraph 49. Work is currently underway in finance and the office of the chief economic adviser to build a comprehensive overview of the institutions, the costs and the staff numbers, which I will draw together and provide an update to Cabinet on in June. That's June 2012. So taxpayer funded civil servants were working on giving the Government those costs more than two years ago. The Cabinet has the numbers. The First Minister has the numbers. Why won't he let Scotland see the numbers? First Minister. This is the Scotland analysis, the most comprehensive piece of work that the United Kingdom Treasury apparently has ever produced. Professor Dunleavy, who Danny Alexander yesterday tried to write our history, appears in page 38. He says that the Institute of Government, the London School of Economics and Political Science, estimated the average cost for a new policy department at approximately £15 million. If costs were incurred for 180 organisations, the total cost would be £2.7 billion. It was the UK Government who introduced Professor Dunleavy, who I must say is an estimable person. I've never met him, but he sounds like the sort of person I want to meet. It was Professor Dunleavy who said that the UK Government were guilty of gross exaggeration, were multiplying his work by a factor of 12 and then produced the estimate of £200 million as closer to the mark. Danny Alexander, when faced with this torrent of questioning as to why they were relying on a professor who was saying they were badly misrepresenting his work, said, no, no. We're not talking about Professor Dunleavy. It was actually Professor Young that we were relying on. Professor Young told the Financial Times, however, that the £1.5 billion estimate was not his but extrapolated from another range of estimates. Then, looking at his paper, Professor Young said that the UK position is to make pessimistic predictions, warnings and the occasional threat. Professor Young is from the island to meet as well. Basically, Ruth Davidson, when the two professors relied upon by the United Kingdom Treasury to produce the ammunition to destroy the case for Scottish independence, ended up backing the case in terms of the estimates that they produced, it's time to revise her questioning strategy. Mr Rennie? To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting First Minister. Issues of importance to the people of Scotland. We were told that the white paper was the most comprehensive and detailed blueprint of its kind ever published. Comprehensive and detailed, but it doesn't even include the costs of getting started. The Scottish Government's Transition Cost document that Ruth Davidson rightly referred to, but he refused to answer, was written two years ago. Will the First Minister tell us where it is? I would say that the depth of examination of the questioning and the combination of better together leaves a whole range of opportunities for answer. Yes, the documents that we published yesterday have comprehensive information. Yes, the documents that we published yesterday make a range of forecasts and estimates, but the difference between the document that his lot published yesterday and the document published by the Scottish Government is that his lot's document has been destroyed by the very experts who were cited to support it. The other difference is that the Scottish Government looks forward in a way to developing the Scottish economy and Scottish society. We do not claim the Westminster bonus of the UK Government, which nobody in Scotland believes they will ever see from the United Kingdom treasury. What we say is that, working together, we can achieve higher employment, higher productivity, a better balance of working population in Scotland, and matching and marring the resources and talents of our people build a more prosperous and just society. If Willie Rennie thinks that the miserable destroyed document that Danny Alexander presented yesterday is going to match up to a positive vision of the future, then he is going to get the same disappointment in September as he experienced last week. The answer to where is it was very long but did not answer the question. That is important for the First Minister, because if people vote for independence in September, they find out that the First Minister was wrong on the costs, there is no way back. If there is work and he scoffs but he needs to answer the question, if there is work why won't he show it? If there isn't, why hasn't it been done? We know that he is an expert on everyone else's figures, so he now has the chance to put them right. It's simple, he can publish the document that was produced two years ago and set out the cost for the transition to an independent Scotland. Will he agree to do that today? I think that Willie Rennie cares to examine the document that he published yesterday. He will say that projection is not for 2016-17, not just for the two years following, but a 15-year projection for growth and achievement in the Scottish economy. Specifically, it looks forward to a 0.3 increase in productivity. It looks forward to better balance to the working-age population. It looks forward to increasing employment in Scotland by 3.5 per cent and sets out the mechanisms and measures by which, using the powers and tools of independence, we can achieve that. If we manage that together as a society, then that means that we will have an extra £5 billion additional tax revenue, £1,000 ahead for every man, woman and child in Scotland, or £2,000 per family, not given to us in a plate, but something that we can work together as a society so that we can create a better, more prosperous and fairer future for the people of Scotland. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to reports that the Royal Mail has called into question its ability to fulfil the universal service obligation and what the impact could be on rural communities. Postal services are a lifeline for many of Scotland's communities, particularly in some of our nation's more remote rural areas. Those communities depend on the delivery service guaranteed by the Royal Mail's universal service obligation, while it is so deeply concerning to see the Royal Mail's concerns about its ability to fulfil the universal service obligation. I think that we can reflect on two things. One, it is disgraceful that the public asset was sold at a knock-down price, and, secondly, with regulation of mail, it will be in the hands of a Scottish Parliament that will provide us with the opportunity to ensure that that universal postal service is there in the best interests of communities across this country. I thank the First Minister for his answer. Prior to the cut-price sell-off, we were given specific assurances that the universal service obligation would be maintained. Indeed, as recently as last month, Vince Cable said, and I quote, the sale of shares in Royal Mail has delivered an on-our commitment to protect the universal postal service and safeguard vital services for the taxpayer. My local MP, Danny Alexander, also once said— Can we get a question, Mr Thomson? Yes, Presiding Officer, we must continue to be vigilant and safeguard the USO at all costs. Does the First Minister believe that those Lib Dem MPs are to be trusted? I think that the question of trust between Danny Alexander and Vince Cable was very pertinent to the events in the last 24 hours. It is something that no doubt will be speculated on who commissioned the poll at Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber. Did Vince Cable know about it? The only thing that is certain is that we know what the results of that poll were at Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber. I believe that the undermining or questioning—let's call it that, because it's a questioning, a concern that has been said by Royal Mail executives about the universal service obligation—brings very quickly into the front-line of public discussion something that those of us who opposed the privatisation of the Royal Mail were deeply concerned about. We will be looking for more assurances that this universal service obligation guarantee still stands. Whether we get them from Danny Alexander or Vince Cable, I suspect that we should get them quickly, otherwise we might not get them at all. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the recommendations in the land reform review group's final report, The Land of Scotland and the Common Good. First Minister, it is very important that the Scottish Government and this Parliament and all stakeholders have time to consider what is a very substantial report. We have already announced that we agree with the importance of assuring who now who owns Scotland and, last weekend, we announced the timetable for completing the land register. As Clare Baker will be aware, the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee are taking evidence from the review group and stakeholders this week and next, thereafter the Environment Minister Paul Wheelhouse will provide further detail on how we intend to take forward Scotland's land reform agenda at the Community Land Scotland conference being held in Skye on June 7. I thank the First Minister for that reply. Will he today support the report's direction of travel and rise to its challenges, the vast majority of which can be met in this Parliament, and will he be prepared to make quick progress where possible? The minister's u-turn on Sunday in terms of a timescale for the land registration completion was welcome. Does he recognise that one of the key calls from the review group is for greater transparency over ownership? Will the Government now introduce the regulations that will ensure the land register will contain details of beneficial ownership and disclose the true owner of a foreign company? First Minister. The land register is very important and therefore the timetable for completing it, I am glad, is welcomed by Clare Baker. She asks if we are supporting the direction of travel, the answer to that question is yes. Not every specific proposal, as she knows, for example, we do not agree with the derating of agricultural land being questioned because we have already investigated that. However, the direction of travel is a good way to put it, and I will look forward to the examination that is going to come from this Parliament. I was disappointed that Clare Baker was rather misrepresenting her. Perhaps it was her press officer what the report said. When she suggested that there had not been substantive action from the SNP since we came to power in 2007, the report actually said that since 2003 there has been no land reform programme since 2003. What there has been, of course, is a re-establishment of the community land fund, which was effectively abolished by the Labour Party, which is quite important if you want communities to buy land that they have a fund to support. I am sure that the member will today. Clare Baker says that it is nonsense. I am afraid that it is not nonsense. If she looks into the details, she will see that there was no fund to enable communities to buy land until it was re-established by this Government. I am sure that Clare Baker will be first to welcome today's announcement that the Scottish Government's land fund, which was re-established by the Scottish National Party, is supporting the community ownership of the Carlaway estate of Lewis with a grant of more than £200,000. That will enable the purchase of 11,000 acres of land, including the renowned Calanich standing stones, to come into community ownership, and another important stepping stone into our target of a million acres under community ownership by 2020. Patrick Harvie. I welcome the agreement for a target date for completion of the register, and I wonder if the Government now regrets voting against my amendments to the land registrations bill, which would have done just that. Why can the Government accept that recommendation and reject so out of hand the key recommendations on tax so quickly without leaving any time for scrutiny of the report itself? We are considering the variety of aspects of the report. The area that I mentioned on the rating of agriculture land is something that we had already investigated as a Government and reported on in the last year or so, and that is why we pointed that out in reaction. In relation to the direction of travel of the report, we are extremely interested, which is why I have set out the parliamentary and ministerial timetable for responding to the substantive suggestions of the report. I welcome Patrick Harvie's acknowledgement of the importance of the land register, and I am sure that he, like me, is enthused by the reinvigorated land purchase fund for communities that is taking us on the way to that enormous but achievable target of a million acres in community ownership by 2020. Presiding Officer, you asked the First Minister when the business rates incentivisation scheme will become operational. As Gambrough knows, it was introduced in the first of April 2012. The Scottish Government, in general terms, offers the most competitive business rates package in the United Kingdom. As he also knows, it supports 90,000 businesses through the small business bonus scheme. It became operational in 2012. Apparently, that is an interesting definition of operational. In year 1, the targets were changed mid-year and nobody has been paid. In year 2, no targets were set at all, and we are now in year 3, and no targets have been set for year 3. Can the First Minister name a single council that has been incentivised by the scheme? As Gavin Brown, I am sure, would want to acknowledge that COSLA—well, okay, I am not sure he wants to acknowledge it, but he is going to hear it anyway—that COSLA leaders decided in May 2013 that they did not want to consider reviewing the 2012-13 BRICE targets until the final non-domestic rates audited figures for 2012-13 became available in February of this year. That was a view and decision of the COSLA leadership. They reconsidered their position in the 25 April 2014 meeting that a significant event had not occurred. As a result, they were unable to agree the revised 2012-13 targets. I understand that that was by a majority of 17 to 15 on the COSLA leadership. Mr Swinney will be meeting with COSLA in friendship and in cooperation and trying to see whether we can agree a way forward, because the scheme was brought in to incentivise local authorities. Therefore, we wish to see agreement on how the incentive is dispersed. However, in all honesty to Gavin Brown, if he likes to look into the detail, I know that he, because he is such a careful scrutiner of public money, will want to see an incentive scheme paid out for business innovation, not just paid out because there has been a lack of success of appeals against the rating system, because the Tory party, whatever else they are known for, and Gavin Brown, whatever else he does or does not do, is a man who looks at the detail and the facts. Therefore, I am sure that we will want to back Mr Swinney's efforts to take this scheme forward in a proper way. That ends First Minister's questions. We are now moving to members' business, members who leave the chamber, should do so quickly and quietly.