 The next item of business is consideration of business motion 11828, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting a timetable for the stage 3 consideration of the Food Scotland Bill. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-to-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 11828. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore I now put the question to the motion. The question is that motion 11828, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The next item of business is consideration of business motion 11831, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting a revision to the business programme for today. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-to-speak button now, and I call on Joe Fitzpatrick to move motion 11831. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion 11831, in the name of Joe Fitzpatrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is there for agreed to. We now move to topical questions, question number one, Jim Hulme. To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to support hospital emergency departments in light of reports of increased waiting times and concerns that GP closures over the festive period will exacerbate the situation. Every year, NHS boards and their partners develop robust plans for winter. The winter planning guidance for NHS boards issued in September has a specific focus on the two four-day festive holidays. We have invested more than £18 million this year to support health boards to improve the way emergency care operates within hospitals and to address delayed discharges particularly over the winter months. That investment will provide increased nursing staff, staffing over the winter period, increased emergency ambulatory care capacity to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and increased consultant presence at weekends. Additionally, NHS 24 has received additional resources to answer calls over the festive period. It plays a key role in facilitating access to NHS board out-of-hours GP services that each year are available throughout the festive period. The NHS 24 free phone 111 number will often be the best first port of call for anyone with health concerns this festive period. Jim Hulme. I thank the cabinet secretary for the answer. I can just say at the outset that this is not about the outstanding work of those in our NHS. They have our full support but I am not really comforted by the minister's response this year. More than 100,000 patients waited for more than four hours in the accident and emergency departments. In the 12 weeks to the end of September, nearly 2,000 patients had to wait over eight hours. That is more than twice as many as last year. Winter is knocking at the door, which will only exacerbate the situation. I wonder what the Scottish Government will do in this next week to work with the NHS boards with this new information to ensure that already struggling emergency departments are able to cope throughout this winter. Of course, it is quite right that we pay tribute to the outstanding work of the staff within our health service winter. It always brings challenges and they do a fantastic job to overcome those challenges. I say to Jim Hulme that we have absolutely been working with local boards to make sure that their winter plans are robust. That is an on-going conversation. I again have been asking the boards to test their plans to make sure that they have the capacity to cope with winter pressures. Of course, they are used to doing that. Every year they will staff up and make sure that they have resilience within their plans to cope with winter. This year is no different from that. Other than that, of course, we have the two four-day festive holidays and that is why there has been particular focus on making sure that they are absolutely prepared. There is an important message to the public in all of this, which is why NHS 24 has been running the be health wise this winter campaign, which is advising people to not just stock up on the usual remedies and to ensure that they have their repeat prescriptions, but importantly to know where to turn if they are ill. Of course, NHS 24 opens the door to out-of-hours GP services and all the services that that person should require. It is important that we all collectively send a message to the public that NHS 24 should be the first port of call. I thank the cabinet secretary again for that. The BMA has said that there is a weekly crisis around A&E departments and GP out-of-hours services. Six years ago, the Government said that it would reduce pressure on emergency departments by improving primary services for minor ailments, but the numbers attending A&E are higher than ever—that is 198 per hour. The system is in crisis after seven years of this Government. With that in mind, and this trend that is increasing, what is the Scottish Government proposing to reverse this trend in increasing A&E visits, given that the work to date has not really been adequate? I remind Jim Hume about the number of delayed discharges and pressures on A&E that were in place before 2007, but I will move on to talk about what we have done and the considerable work that has gone in—the £50 million investment in unscheduled care—absolutely to make sure that there are systems in place that avoid people turning up at A&E in the first place. A lot of work is going on within the community to avoid admissions, particularly vulnerable elderly people, and to make sure that, where possible, they can be treated either at home or in other settings. We must make sure that we have step-up, step-down facilities to get people out of acute beds as quickly as possible. Importantly, to avoid people needing to go in in the first place by giving a different place to go where rehabilitation and support can be given. All of those things are important, and that is why all of those measures are being taken forward, as well as the top priority that I have given to delay discharge. One of the challenges that Jim Hume himself alluded to in terms of people coming through A&E in a quick and speedy fashion is, of course, the availability of beds within the system. Delayed discharge is having a huge impact on that, which is why it is a top priority with investment going in, not just to deal with delayed discharge this winter, which we will have to do to alleviate pressure on the system, but, importantly, to tackle delayed discharge out of the system once and for all. That is my commitment going forward over the next few months. Neil Findlay. NHS Lothian is already struggling to recover from the past waiting times scandal. Now, we see in the evening news that there is a £70 million funding gap described by a senior board member as a very dire picture. Given concerns about increased waiting times and GP closures over the festive period, what assistance and advice can the cabinet secretary offer to patients concerned about the impact of the budget crisis in NHS Lothian and its impact on patients? Well, first of all, the assurance to patients will be that NHS Lothian will manage their financial processes through in the way that other boards do, and we will get into financial balance by the end of the year. Of course, boards are getting a real-terms increase in their uplift, and we will get that going into next financial year. Of course, the member, just last week, was calling for money to go into social care. One week, he is calling for money to go into social care, and then a week later, he is calling for the same money to be magicked up and spent again in the health service. We have already committed, as he would have noticed had he seen my colleague here, John Swinney, announced that the consequentials from the autumn statement will all be going to health, against something that the member has refused as a health spokesperson to confirm himself. I do not underestimate the challenges that the health service faces, and I am absolutely determined to tackle them. I will not take any lectures from the member opposite on these matters. Mr Findlay, you must stop heckling across the chamber. Question 2, Dave Thomson. It's me. Sorry, Dave Thomson. Yeah, the microphone is not working. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's coming. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Sorry about that. Well, it's not my fault anyway. To ask the Scottish Government— One moment, Mr Thomson, could you sit down please? Mr Findlay, I have already warned you about heckling. Mr Findlay, will you stop arguing with me? I have already warned you about heckling. Will you please desist and behave yourself? Mr Thomson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure that disruption as a result of cold weather this week is kept to a minimum. Cabinet Secretary, John Swinney. Presiding Officer, the current weather situation is that there is a windy and unsettled week ahead of us with many areas of the country experienced in their first snowfall of the season. While this weather is not unusual in Scotland this time of year, it is necessary to prepare accordingly. Plans are already in place and all responders are working together to this objective. Grithers have been active in supporting the essential work that is required on the Trunff Road network. In addition, the resilience division has convened a meeting of our resilience partners from across Scotland this afternoon, and later today there will be a ministerial resilience call to discuss the preparations. The Scottish Government's resilience response has been activated along with the Transport Scotland multi-agency response team to oversee the co-ordinated efforts of responders and local partnerships. On Sunday, the transport minister observed grithing preparations in the west of Scotland, and earlier today I visited the new Transport Scotland control centre in South Queensferry, where I saw the extensive arrangements in place to keep the country moving and to provide the best possible advice to members of the public. Dave Thomson. I thank the Deputy First Minister for his answer. One of the challenges in previous winters has been the availability of salt. I wonder if the Deputy First Minister can reassure people that stock levels this year are appropriate, and is there any way that motorists can get information on where the grithers will be and when? Presiding Officer, the stock supplies in Scotland at 1 December 2014 were 639,120 tonnes, which includes 90,000 of tonnes in the strategic salt reserve. That is almost double the stock that was used last winter, and is as much as was used in the severe weather in 2010-11, which was a particular challenge to our resilience operations at that time. The information on grithing operations that are undertaken on the trunk road network is visible in real time on the Traffic Scotland website. That information is available and updated on a daily basis, so members of the public can access that information, and it indicates the routes that are being supported. There are, of course, backup arrangements whereby additional grithing services can be deployed if there are urgent circumstances that materialise. Mr Thomson. Highland Council is planning to leave secondary roads with little traffic unsalted in the early morning, as the salt does not work unless it is driven on. I just wonder if the cabinet secretary would agree that this is something worth considering. Obviously, the judgments have to be arrived at local level by individual authorities who will have to take into account particular circumstances in their own localities, given the fact that the conditions can vary dramatically from area to area. Obviously, we take a proactive approach on the trunk road network. The grithing operations are well advertised on the Traffic Scotland website, but individual local authorities will come to appropriate conclusions depending on the circumstances in their locality. Alex Johnston. The particularly cold period that we were enduring exactly four years ago just now was a considerable disruption on the railways as a result of frozen points. We were told at the time that there was a programme in place to electrically heat points in future. Are we aware at this stage as to whether that programme is completed and whether we can avoid that problem should we suffer cold weather in a similar vein? There has been a whole series of incremental steps taken to ensure that that has taken place. The rail network has been upgraded to ensure that we have greater resilience on those questions. Mr Johnston will appreciate, given the extremity of temperatures that we experienced four years ago, the circumstances that we will face in the course of the next seven days will not mirror temperatures or anything of that order whatsoever. There is greater resilience, but the process is an incremental one, which will take some time to be completed. Thank you. That ends topical questions. The next item of business is stage 3, proceedings on the Food Scotland Bill. In dealing with the amendments that members should have, the bill was amended at stage 2, that is SP Bill 48A.