 Gw warnings on the Scottish Government's programme for government 2017-18. I invite all members who wish to speak this afternoon to press their requests to speak buttons now and I call on Jeane Freeman. Thank you Presiding Officer. When we published our national performance framework in June, we set out a significant ambition for improving the wellbeing of the people of Scotland. Inserciwy TaxomMe is central to that ambition, and I welcome this opportunity to set out in some small measure how our programme for government will continue to work to meet those ambitions. Our nation's economic health and wellbeing depends on the health and wellbeing of each staff are the heart of our health service. Their dedication to caring for the people of Scotland is tremendous and I want to put on record my thanks for the care that they deliver to all of us. But ensuring that we have the right number of staff with the right skills to meet changing demand is itself clearly a challenge. There can surely be no doubt anywhere in this chamber that Brexit makes addressing this challenge harder. It makes it harder, but it adds further impetus to our need to take action. Our programme for government demonstrates our commitment. Our approach is clear. We are building on the work of recent years. Hard, productive work that has driven innovation, like the Scottish patient safety programme, now in its 10th year, a programme that led to reductions in sepsis and surgical mortality both by over a fifth. Work that drives our integration of health and social care to bring the right care to people at the right setting and will see the delivery of Frank's law by April next year. Work that values all our workforce, with all of those earning under £80,000, saying a pay increase of at least 9 per cent for agenda for change staff over the next three years and a 3 per cent increase in salaried NHS doctor and dentist pay this year. Work that has delivered the new GP contract in partnership with the BMA, putting our GPs where they belong as our local lead clinicians. All of that and a great deal more delivered day in, day out by professional NHS Scotland staff. Dedication that earns them the justifiable 83 per cent satisfaction rate in the most recent Scottish household survey. I know only too well that there is more we need to do, but I also know that we tackle those areas where performance must improve from that strong foundation. Mental health is so critical to our wellbeing, but we know, as others across the chamber have said, that our configuration of mental health services and their accessibility needs to improve, especially for our children and our young people. While we have asked Dame Denise Coyer to look where and how improvements should be made, we know that those who need that support should see action from us now. Action to provide the right support at the right time and in the right setting. Our programme for government sets out a comprehensive package of investment and reform, with a quarter of a billion pounds of additional investment, all designed to improve services, including more wellbeing support for women before and after birth, 350 more councillors and 250 more nurses in our schools, giving us one councillor in every secondary school, 80 councillors in further and higher education, increasing support for teachers, enhancing community-based mental health and wellbeing for five to 24-year-olds and fast tracking for those who need specialist services. A comprehensive package that rightly demands collaboration across Government and public services. Hi, can I just ask out of interest, with that money that is going to provide councillors in schools, for those schools that already have councillors in, will they lose their share of that potential funding or will it still support what they are already doing and allow them to use the current money for something else? That would be a discussion that we would have with them. Certainly, we have no intention of taking services and support away, so we need to look at what more we can do in a school that has already made that provision, and we will have that conversation with COSLA and, of course, with educational leaders. Elsewhere, we will see trauma centres opening in Aberdeen before Christmas, and from early next year, work begun on our expanded elective centre services, which are critical to maintaining sustainable improvement in waiting times. In a few weeks, I will set out in detail the additional work that we will undertake to focus improvement action and improve waiting times in a number of board areas and specialities. We have spoken before of the significant benefit that the NHS has brought enabling more and more of us to live longer. We address those challenges, as we have described in programme for government and elsewhere, but we must not lose sight of the need to make sure that young generations now and in the future not only live longer but live more healthily than we may have done. The programme for government focuses on the health of those generations, meaning delivering on other fundamental health issues such as diet and obesity, and supported by an investment of £42 million to tackle type 2 diabetes. The baby box, our work on best start grant, the early delivery of that grant and our young carers grant all indicate our focus across government to help our families, our children and our young people. I am delighted to say that we will continue to do the work that we need to do to consider the necessary improvements in terms of further income support. Presiding Officer, this year is the 70th anniversary of our national health service, and we have rightly recognised and celebrated that achievement. Our health service itself shows us that celebration does not mean complacency but inspire more ambition and challenge. That is at the heart of our programme for government's vision for public services, a programme for government for the whole of Scotland to flourish. I now call on Miles Briggs to be full by James Dornan. Over the summer recess, I was able to also meet with many of our outstanding nurses, doctors and other NHS workers and hear their views and ideas. I want to again, like the cabinet secretary just has, put on as we start this new term, put on record my party's gratitude for all that they do each and every day of the year to care for people across Scotland. I'd like to welcome the cabinet secretary to her position today. She will, I am sure, have an entry the size of Arthur's seat. Most of that probably is letters from myself and questions from myself, but I'd like to genuinely welcome her to her position and look forward to working with her in this role. Presiding Officer, this SNP Government has now been in power for 11 years and has such incomplete and total control of running our NHS. It's therefore legitimate for all of us to consider and assess the SNP record on Scotland's NHS and how that compares to the performance that it inherited in 2007, when the SNP first came to office. Sadly, when we do so, there are far too many examples of things not only just not improving but worsening for patients across Scotland on this Government's watch. Any waiting times have deteriorated, with fewer people being seen in the four-hour target. Indeed, the target has not been met since July 2017, and the last winter's performance dipped to a record low. On the 18-week referral to treatment target, the percentage of patients being seen within this timescale has declined and is regularly worse than when the SNP ministers first put this policy in place in 2007. Early cancer diagnosis and detection rates are falling and waits for key diagnostic services are lengthening. It's a national crisis, I believe, and that's been reported in the papers over the summer recess that drug-related deaths have doubled since 2007, with 934 of our fellow Scots losing their lives last year because of drug abuse. On delayed discharge, supposedly a key priority for this Government where the First Minister has said repeatedly that her Government will get on top of the number of patients ready to leave hospital but having to stay there through no fault of their own has increased significantly, adding to capacity pressures on already busy hospital wards. That is a major area of concern for my own. I am sure that Mr Briggs will acknowledge that I have said repeatedly that I completely accept that there are areas for improvement. I am also sure that he will acknowledge that he and I have discussed the importance of recognising the NHS successes as the foundations on which we build. Will he also recognise that 9 out of 10 patients in A&E, despite rising demand, continue to be treated within that target, a target that NHS England has completely abandoned? I will always take the opportunity to praise our NHS staff and A&E staff, and I certainly haven't visited a number of A&E units across Scotland who have seen the pressure that they are under and how they are working to achieve that. Out of the key performance targets for our NHS, which the SNP set yourselves, Audit Scotland confirmed last year in the autumn that only one of those has been met in 2016-17, and the former cabinet secretary made no great claims that those would be met this year. Again this summer, we have seen many more examples of problems in our local health services, which are a direct result of the Government's abject failure to put in place a long-term NHS workforce plan that should be established years ago. I welcome what the cabinet secretary said today, if that is her real priority. Scotland's GP crisis shows no signs of abating. As the thousands of patients at Rose Mount's medical practice in Aberdeen know only too well following the news this summer that the practice will close next January. Meanwhile, the crisis in radiology services means that the NHS in Highland has lost its last interventionist radiologist and is having to rely on locums or sending patients to Tayside and Grampian. That is an issue that simply must be a priority for the new health secretary, and we are happy to work to make sure that workforce is that priority, which it should have been 11 years ago. In my own region of NHS Lothian, the paediatric unit at St John's hospital has remained closed now, with hundreds of inpatient overnight being sent to the Royal Sick Kids in Edinburgh. The mismanagement of our NHS workforce has, I am sorry to say, become the hallmark of this SNP Government, and for our dedicated NHS staff it is becoming ever clear that this Scottish Government is part of the problem and not part of the solution. On child mental health waiting times, as we discovered on Tuesday, we now have the poorest CAMHS waiting times on record. I welcome the announcement on CAMHS mental health funding. It is something that the Scottish Conservatives have been calling for for years, but let me be absolutely clear that the crisis in our mental health services across Scotland affecting young people and families is because they have been failed by this SNP Government to put in place the resources needed. We may have a new health secretary, but the evidence so far suggests that we do not have any new ideas to tackle many of those problems facing our NHS. More of the same simply cannot be good enough for Scotland's patients and under pressure NHS. That is why Scottish Conservatives will be bringing forward our proactive policies in this area. I am happy to work with the minister if she is willing to take forward our ideas. Over the next year, the Scottish Conservatives will continue to scrutinise the Government's necessary work towards our health service. We will carry on the work with NHS professionals and experts to develop the new policy ideas and fresh thinking that is required. It is our responsibility as a Government to ensure high-quality health services that are delivered as close to home as possible with the right balance of hospital care and community care. We must do more to improve health and tackle the grotesque inequalities that still scar our nation. We need a sharper focus on prevention and on supporting people to take greater responsibility of their own wellbeing. Those are the words of the new health secretary, now First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, in June 2007. After 11 long, tired and distracted years in office by this SNP Government, we seem further away today than ever achieving those outcomes. I hope that I am proven wrong and that this Government will work to improve our health service, but it must focus on doing that and not on separation. James Dornan, to be followed by Iain Gray. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, and thank you for pushing me forward in the speaker's list to let me get away earlier. Miles Briggs has one thing right, and it was that he will be proved wrong with the legacy that this SNP Government will be leaving for Scotland, which will be a very positive one, when, eventually, there is another party in here that the people of Scotland will be fit to run the country of Scotland. It is a pleasure to be back at Parliament and take part in this year's debate on the programme for government. It is a challenging time for Scotland as we continue to try and grow the economy, preserve and protect public services and ensure a fairer Scotland for all. Of course, we do this with austerity, biting massive chunks out of our budget and Brexit, causing ever more social and economic uncertainty. I was delighted when our First Minister rolled out such a positive forward-facing and outward-looking programme for our Government and the people of Scotland. It is clear that this is a Government that is serious about building our strong foundations to create a more equal, fair and progressive Scotland. Over the last year, the Scottish Government has undertaken a number of steps to make Scotland a better place to live, work and grow up in. From the introduction of the new fairer income tax system, which says that 70 per cent of people are paying less tax now than last year, a policy and outcome so disliked by the Tories, of course, to the passing of the domestic abuse bill, we have achieved a lot in 12 months. I would also like to take this opportunity as a humble backbencher to voice my thanks to the members who have recently left their roles as ministers for the tireless work and championing last year's programme for government. I feel the good fortune of working for the minister and I know just how hard they work. I also want to wish the new cabinet secretary and ministers good luck in their new portfolios. One of the crucial areas that is contained in this programme for government is within communities and local government. The SNP Government is increasing its commitment to tackle food insecurity that many of our children across Scotland face. The additional £2 million of funding that is being made available will make a considerable difference to many families left behind by Tory welfare cuts or the shameful benefit science system that is in affront to all of us in a caring and compassionate country such as Scotland. The other point that I wish to mention in this area is the plans to eradicate homelessness by building on the important work undertaken by the homelessness and rough sleeping action group in partnership with the Scottish Parliament's local government and communities committee. I think that I should mention Bob Doris and the other members of the committee who have done a fantastic job there. Again, we have a social disgrace that is exacerbated by an unfair UK design benefit system that, remember, gave us a bedroom tax too. Joint work with organisations such as Glasgow Homeless and its network and others will show what partnership working between government and the third sector can achieve. I welcome the additional £21 million of funding that is made available for this approach. Over the start of this parliamentary term, I decided that it was time to be honest about my own mental health. As politicians and men, there is still this preconceived notion that we should be strong. However, now I realise that, for me, being strong is being honest and saying when I am not okay. I hope that this will allow others to say when they are not okay. I have struggled with bouts of anxiety and depression for most of my life, and it is difficult for me to pinpoint where it really began. However, I have been profoundly lucky that, even within my role as an MSP, I have been able to meet and work with mental health organisations, such as breathing space, for example, which has given me a better understanding of my own health and how I can deal with it, and how I can take that knowledge to others throughout my constituency and further afield if required. However, I cannot help but wonder just how much better my mental health could have been over the course of my life, benefiting me and many others should there have been early intervention when I was younger, so I was absolutely delighted when the First Minister put mental health improvement at the top of her agenda. Taking on the challenge of tackling poor mental health from the cradle onwards with a £250 million investment, more support for perian postnatal mental health for new mothers, which will include better and more accessible counselling and support services, and there are groups in my constituency such as the Southside Pandas who will welcome this news with open arms and be delighted to work in partnership with the Government to ensure positive outcomes for both mothers and babies. My office has been doing some research into the adolescent mental health, which has led us to become very aware of the adverse childhood experiences, and we are now aware that ACEs can not only harm the child mentally, but many studies have carried out that have shown that they can severely stunt a child's ability to learn. Therefore, it is of monumental importance that every member of this chamber backs this Government's ambitious plans of having a counselling service available for every high school in Scotland to identify, treat and provide each and every child across this country with a fair and equal start. I have no doubts at all that I would have benefited from this, and I have no doubts that many people I knew when they were young would have benefited from this. We are, after all, only as strong as the future we are creating. I started this speech by noting how positive and ambitious this programme for government is, and there are so many plans that I would live to have touched on because it will have a profound and positive impact across my constituency. However, that would be impossible in a lot of time, so take this opportunity to urge members to work with the Government to achieve those targets. Sometimes we should put partisan politics aside for the benefit of the people of this country. This Parliament is here to work for the people of Scotland and to invest its resources to benefit the people who live here. It is our job to improve the lives across many constituencies, and I look forward to working with our Government throughout 2018 and 2019 for the people of Githcart constituency and for the people of Scotland. Iain Gray to be followed by Alex Neil. There was a time when these programmes for government always had some kind of story to bind them together into a narrative. Who can forget, for example, the Saudi Arabia of the Seas or the first hydro-nation on the planet? I think that we might even once have been promised the new Scottish enlightenment. Gratuitus grandios guff, of course, but more entertaining than this year's interminable managerialist list of reheated, recycled and regurgitated announcements, a tired, timid and turgid programme from a Government bereft of vision, strategy or ambition for our country. Let me welcome a couple of things, though, indeed. Incorporating the UN convention on the rights of the child is a very welcome step, the right thing and an important signal. It would have been good to have had some legislative detail or a timescale provided but absolutely the right thing for us to do. Counseling in schools is great, too. Such a sensible early intervention approach, as Mr Dornan has just eloquently and powerfully argued. England and Wales legislated separately for the right to counseling years ago. Labour has argued for the measure in our manifesto in here, not least four times at FMQs. It is a pity just that it did take the worst children's mental health statistics ever seen to prompt this welcome action. Above all, let me welcome this, the great gaping hole at the heart of the programme where the education bill was meant to be. The flagship, the sacred duty, the engine of the reforms on which the First Minister and her Government were to be judged. Unlike the Tories, I come here to bury the missing bill, not to praise it. It was always a wrongheaded, unwanted attempt to centralise control of our schools and the education secretary's hands and to undermine local democratic decision making on local schools. I am glad to see it go. However, the Government has wasted two years on so-called reforms which would only create more bureaucracy and do nothing to improve standards in our schools. After two years, it has convinced no one that those reforms are a good idea, except perhaps the Tories, which should really tell them something. Parents, teachers, educationalists and local councillors are all delighted to see this bill go. Alas, however, the evil that men and bills do lives after them. The Government has promised only to waste another year ploughing on with structural tinkering, which is not what our schools need. Headteachers still fear being swamped by the management of schools rather than learning. Schools see already a regional layer of bureaucracy demanding plans, strategies, time and staff from them. Pupils are still sitting national tests, which teachers tell us are a waste of time in educational terms. Councils are still threatened with potentially losing the right to decide their own local schools budgets. It is still mince, as Larry Flanagan of the EIS said in committee yesterday. The real hole at the heart of this programme for government is the lack of any initiative to address the substantive issues in our schools, the lack of teachers, support staff and resources. Where is the funding to restore at least some of the over 20 per cent erosion in teacher salaries? Where is the plan and the money to reverse the loss of additional support needs provision in every school in this land? How is the Government going to fill 800 teacher vacancies at the start of the school year now that their social media ads and new routes to teaching have failed to do so? Absent from this programme is any acceptance of the real problem, the fact that this Government is spending in real terms £400 million less on schools now than it was in 2010, £400 million. That includes the pupil equity fund, which is supposed to be extra funding. Take that out and they have cut half a billion pounds per year from the core spending on our children's education. That is the problem in our schools, but where is the response to that in this programme for government? Nowhere. Where is the policy to reverse the downward trend and pass rates in the gold standard higher? Nowhere. Where is the measure to reverse the 34 per cent drop in attainment in nationals 4 and 5 compared to standard rates? Nowhere. Where is the guaranteed income promise in the student support review for students or the raising of the cap on university places, frustrating so many Scottish would-be students? Nowhere. This week, we saw that, since Nicola Sturgeon first declared education her top priority, satisfaction with schools in this country has plummeted by 10 per cent of points. There is nothing in this programme for government that will change that story of drift and decline. Liz Smith, followed by Bruce Crawford. Sorry, I beg for that. I call Alex Neil to be followed by Liz Smith. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It is always a pleasure to follow Ian Gray, because he is always so cheery in everything that he says. He started off by saying that there was no theme to the programme for government. To be fair to the Labour Opposition, there is a theme that runs across the bill benches. There are two themes. First of all, they are empty. The second one is when they are here, they are hopeless, they are helpless and they are heading for oblivion as well. No lack of a theme over there. Presiding Officer, I welcome the 12 bills and the other measures announced by the First Minister in the programme for government, in particular the focus on improving the economy and public services. There are two areas that I want to address this afternoon in which priority has to be given. The first is in relation to child poverty. I have been in here for 19 years and I have lived through many speeches about child poverty in this chamber, but I think that we would all agree on two things. First of all, the level of child poverty in Scotland is totally unacceptable, and secondly, the rate at which child poverty is rising as a direct result of the UK Government's benefit cuts is equally unacceptable. I fully recognise the huge financial pressures on the Scottish Government's budget as a result of the austerity budget being pursued from London. I also recognise that we cannot keep on always mitigating and using our scarce resources to mitigate the ill effects of UK Government policy on Scotland, but, at the end of the day, child poverty has to be tackled as a top priority. Indeed, we cannot fully achieve our ambitions for reducing health inequalities, for reducing the gap in educational attainment or, indeed, in reducing inequality more generally, with such a high level of child poverty in our country. Tackling child poverty is a prerequisite to achieving these other laudable aims. We also know that the research in this area shows that the cost to the overall public bus, and I wish that the UK Government would take that on board, the cost to the overall public bus of preventing child poverty is a lot lower over the piece than the cost of dealing with the dire consequences resulting from child poverty. Therefore, I urge the Scottish Government to do all it can to bring forward proposals for reducing the levels of child poverty in Scotland at an early stage and not wait until June next year for a progress report. I think that that is a prerequisite to success in a whole area of policy. The second point that I want to make, Presiding Officer, maybe I have been in here too long, some people would certainly say so, but I remember Henry McLeish when he was the First Minister telling me when I was convener of the Enterprise Committee how frustrated he was that he had allocated a substantial additional amount of money to deal with the problem of literacy and numeracy and had instructed it to be delivered in a certain way and then found out many months later that his instructions had not been followed through. One of my concerns is that the good work of the Scottish Government and the policy intentions of the Scottish Government sometimes can be undermined by the way in which the policies are carried out by the Government's own agencies at a local level. I want to highlight, as an example of that, the way in which NHS Lanarkshire is totally mishandling the proposal for a new hospital to be built to replace the existing Monklands hospital by the mid-20s. Money is half a billion pounds that the Government says it will commit to providing the business case stacks up. I regret to say that, in all honesty, the way in which NHS Lanarkshire has handled this is dreadful, totally unaccountable, flying in the face of local opinion and, quite frankly, basing its case on facts that are not facts at all, to say that they have been economical with the truth would be the understatement of the year. Presiding Officer, the total lack of involvement of local patients in this exercise has been a democratic outrage. Only 16 patients in total took part in the scoring. To date, NHS Lanarkshire has been unable to confirm if even one of those patients lives in the Monklands catchment area, even though those patients will make up 75 per cent of the people who use the new hospital. Against 16 patients in this exercise, 34 NHS Lanarkshire employees took part in the scoring exercise, deciding where the new hospital is to be, and 40 of them are members of the project team who are supposed to provide independent advice to the board on the location of the new hospital. It says in its document up front that one of its key aims is to use the facilities of the new hospital to reduce inequalities, and yet they have made a recommendation on location without, in any way, undertaking an equality assessment of the impact of that particular location. Local people regard it as a total stitch-up and a level of incompetence that is beyond belief. A few years ago, we had to fight them on shutting our A&E, now we have to fight them on keeping a cot, and they promised that the new hospital would be in the Monklands area. That is not an in-be argument, it is a rational argument. Big decisions like that have to be made on the basis of reliable evidence. Nothing that they have reduced so far in any way can carry any confidence whatsoever. I think that what the Government needs to do is to ensure that its intentions, its strategy, its policies, its plan for a new Monklands hospital are carried out and located in a place where the evidence takes us, not where vested interests are trying to lead us and steamroller us into it. The Government's policy here is bang on, it is absolutely the right thing to do, but all that could be wasted because of a body not doing what it is supposed to do. I urge the Government to look not just at NHS Lanarkshire, it is not the only example, and I am not saying that this is a universal truth in the public sector, but where this is happening, particularly on strategically important projects of this nature, I urge the Government to look at it very carefully and to make sure that at the end of the day, the right decision based on the evidence that is made in relation not just to location, but to all other aspects of the hospital development. That would be a tremendous service yet again by the Scottish SNP Government to the people of Monklands. I now call Liz Smith to be followed by Bruce Crawford. This time last year, when both the First Minister and the Cabinet Secretary for Education told us, it has to be said very forcibly indeed, that the new education bill was an essential component of raising standards in the schools, unlike Mr Gray, I chose to believe them. A year on, when the bill was ditched, the problem is not the SNP's ability to recognise what factors need to change, show stark is the evidence in that regard, but a complete failure when it comes to putting into practice the policy decisions that are necessary to remove the barriers that are preventing Scottish schools from moving back up the international league tables. The Cabinet Secretary for Education should not be surprised by that because the warning signals were contained in the OECD's report three years ago, which said that despite very many good things happening in our schools, Scotland is not fulfilling its potential. Let's stand back a bit and see that through the eyes of parents and young people. What do they want from our schools? I think that it comes down to three things. They want good and sufficient teachers in our schools. They want good progress in literacy and numeracy, and they want more opportunities for their families, whether that is a better subject choice, better quality vocational training or greater diversity in extracurricular terms. What have they got? We know that two total teacher numbers are down by 3,500 since 2007, and that permanent vacancies are rising. We have all read the reports in the last couple of weeks in many different newspapers across the country about the local vacancy situations at the start of this new term, and it is the current trends that matter most. For example, in modern languages, there were 1,662 teachers in 2008, but only 1,335 in 2017, and in French and German, the reductions were 30 and 45 per cent respectively. So it is perhaps little wonder that fewer and fewer pupils are taking these two subjects. Indeed, in broad general education, out of 269 secondary schools, only 161 are carrying out the full one-plus-two policy, and in a large number of cases schools are not even stating what their modern languages policy actually is. Yet John Swinney, or perhaps it was his civil servant, told me in a recent parliamentary answer that more pupils than ever are studying modern languages. I can only assume that the cabinet secretary was using short taster courses in primary schools, because if you speak to our modern languages teachers, they tell us that they are in serious trouble in secondary education. Cabinet secretary, the lack of teaching and support staff is real, and it is an additional worry that there are a growing number of teachers leaving the profession early and that families are being disadvantaged by absent teachers. So, in this year's SQA results, and with the exception of advanced hire, which was good, just how worrying is it to read of SQ marker's comments about, and I quote, disappointing basic numeracy in key exams? Cabinet secretary, this is embarrassing, and it is further evidence of the fundamental failings in the delivery of the curriculum for excellence and its accompanying qualifications, because it is crystal clear to everyone that we are not making nearly enough progress in literacy and numeracy or in the testing of those skills, and that by taking Scotland out of key international measurements of literacy and numeracy, the SNP is failing the test itself. But it is not just basic literacy and numeracy that is worrying families. The narrowing of subject choice issues in many schools is an increasing worry, and we have seen Jim Scott's evidence in that. I know that the cabinet secretary will come back and say that if you look at level six qualifications, there is an improvement. That is true, but I think that the cabinet secretary should look at when that growth actually occurred, because it is actually before the new qualifications were implemented. In some subjects, back to modern languages again, these have really suffered badly as a result of narrowing subject choice. I also think that he should look at the drop in the number of level five qualifications, despite the fact that there are lots more different vocational qualifications, because it is the level five qualifications that have a knock-on effect on higher and advanced tiers. Do not forget that that is happening at the same time as the deep-seated concern amongst parents that many of them cannot get their children into Scottish university courses because of the iniquities of the SNP's capped place policy. It is no use telling those students that there is a record number of Scotland-domiciled students at university, or that there are more who are coming for disadvantaged backgrounds—both two—but for those students, it remains that they cannot get in, despite the fact that they are very well qualified, have worked their socks off to get good grades and they cannot get into courses that have free places available simply because of the capping policy. This time last year, we were told by Nicola Sturgeon and John Swinney that the education reform bill was the biggest opportunity to change schools for the better. I still believe that, most especially when it came to addressing the attainment gap. John Swinney and I have very substantial differences of opinion about what should be in that bill, as did many councillors across different political persuasions, but we were willing to work with him. After numerous statements in the chamber, in committee in the media, that the bill was an essential component of reform, it then disappears. We are told after all the hype that it was not really necessary, except that John Swinney says that the bill will be kept ready in case it becomes necessary. Cabinet Secretary, that is not a credible state of affairs when it comes to the SNP's stewardship of education. I am convinced that Scotland can lead the world again when it comes to schools, but not unless there is a major shift in culture in order to properly free up our headteachers to get on with the job of deciding what is best in the schools. It is not all about money and resources that is important, too. It is about the decision making process and where the lines of responsibility and accountability actually lie. What this summer has shown is that parents want more teachers, they want more progress on basic literacy and numeracy, and they want more choices for their pupils to take in different subjects. Under this Government just now, they are not getting any of that. I have some time in hand, so there is time to give for interventions, so there is no need for cross-bench chatter. I call Bruce Crawford to be followed by Monica Lennon. When this Parliament meets for a programme for government or an annual budget statement, we are often startling reminded of the differences in choices between here at Holyrood and those made 400 miles down the road at Westminster. For me, nothing quite signalled the difference in values between the SNP's Scottish Government and the Tory Government in London than the announcement that the First Minister made on the settled status of EU citizens working in our public services. I think that we can all agree that across this Parliament is the immense contribution to our communities, economy and public services that EU citizens make every day. In my view, it is certainly unacceptable that such people may face home office fees in order to secure their settled status. When we crash out of the European Union in March next year, we are followed by a referendum that they were excluded from. Simply put, our national health service would cease the function as normal if we were to suddenly lose such an important cohort of people. Likewise, for the countless other public services that EU citizens help to ensure that are delivered day in, day out. More importantly, covering the costs of the settled status fees for EU citizens working in our devolved services sends out a very clear message. Despite the rhetoric that has consumed the debate at Westminster, EU citizens are welcome here in Scotland. This is their home as it is for all of us, and we value their contribution. In a similar comparison, the early delivery of the best start grant will help to deliver the Scottish National Party Government's vision of making Scotland the best possible place in which to grow up in. The grant, given to parents at a crucial stage of a young child's life, will support families and help to ensure that everyone gets a fair start in life, no matter their background. There will be no cap on the grant, and the dreadful rate clause will not apply. There is a difference between what happens here and what happens at Westminster. I represent a constituency with a large rural area and population, and some of that is remote and rural. Some of them do not have the benefit of being connected to reliable broadband services with decent speeds. The announcement that there are 100 contracts will be awarded this coming year is good news for those communities. That means that we can now focus on the remaining percentage of premises that are not yet connected to fast broadband. Reaching 100 per cent of premises across the country with faster broadband, I am proud to say that it is the most ambitious of its kind anywhere in the United Kingdom. Again, that shows a clear difference in approach between what is happening here in Scotland and what happens at Westminster. I turn to the most important announcement that was made by the First Minister in the programme for government regarding the very important matter of mental health. It is true to say that, in recent times, the contact with my constituents has increased as far as access to mental health services and particularly CAMHS is concerned. I have had meetings and discussions with officials from NHS4 Valley on the proposals to improve services to my constituents. To their credit, the board has attempted to increase the number of appropriately qualified specialists and redesigned mental health services in an attempt to drive forward change. That being said, and I think that it is something that we should all be recognising in this chamber, increasing demand for mental health services as a result in part of the removal of stigma makes the challenge for the board to deliver the level of service that I know it is determined to achieve all the more difficult. That is why I was so delighted that the programme for government contained the very significant announcement of an additional £250 million. I am very pleased that much of that new resource will be aimed at me taking a much more preventative approach, ensuring earlier intervention on a person's care journey. That is why I also very much support the Government's proposals to support 350 counsellors and 250 additional school nurses, ensuring that every secondary school has a counselling service, as well as those additional 80 counsellors for higher and further education. However, by far the most important bit of that is the plans to fast-track young people with the most serious mental health illnesses to specialist services. Finally, Presiding Officer, the volume of negativity from some of the opposition politicians over the past few days has been disappointing to put it mildly. For instance, we have heard bewildering, crunching, we have seen some performances that Corporal Fraser would be hugely proud of, Ian Gray. We also had the Tory economy spokesperson who took to Twitter to decryde the Scottish Government for having run out of ideas on the economy in response to news that Scotland had outperformed the rest of the UK on growth. He could not make it up. Not to mention the package, of course, announced in the programme for government that will stimulate Scotland's economy, ensuring that it replicates the outward looking nation that we are proud to be. Following eight years of austerity imposed on Scotland by a Tory Government, we did not vote for. This is a programme for government for delivery today and investing for tomorrow that builds on the progress that we have made as a country and reaffirms Scotland as an outward looking nation and a confident nation. I call Monica Lennon to be followed by Fulton MacGregor. The programme for government has some welcome announcements, for example additional funding for rape crisis centres and tackling holiday hunger. Access to school-based counselling, and all secondary schools, as mentioned by others, is also very welcome. Scottish Labour has campaigned for all of those measures, as have others, and I take this as a positive step that the Government is prepared to adopt good policies regardless of where they come from. However, when I turn to local governments and our communities, I am disappointed that the Government's programme is very light on new content. That is all no more striking because, on the very day that was published, the Scottish household survey revealed that public satisfaction in public services has plummeted to the lowest level in 10 years. We cannot escape the fact that SNP Government cuts to the tune of £1.5 billion in the last seven years and are making it impossible for councils to deliver the full range of public services that our communities need. Communities are watching important public services disappear from libraries to public toilets. Earlier today, I met with Shelter Scotland to discuss Scotland's housing crisis, and with more than 137,000 people on council waiting lists, they highlighted to me that the average length of time that families spend in temporary accommodation is more than six months. They told me that there is a growing crisis in Scotland and that councils are under resourced and under increasing pressure to respond. That made me think about what that must be doing to staff morale and to the council workers who came into public service to make a difference to the lives of others. They are under increasing pressure to do more with less. A unison survey found that half of the workforce are thinking about leaving their posts for a less stressful job. I am happy to take the intervention. Monica Lennon is fairly addressing the housing challenge that we face, but would Monica Lennon not welcome the commitment of some £1.8 billion towards housing and a commitment that is on track to deliver 50,000 new affordable homes? If that is not the right direction of travel, what did Monica Lennon suggest as a correct figure if £1.8 billion multi-year financial commitment is not good enough? Monica Lennon I welcome the intervention from the cabinet secretary. The discussion that I had today with Shelter Scotland did reflect on some of the good commitments in work that is in progress, but I have to say to the cabinet secretary that it is the pace of that change and that longer-term commitment. I would not want colleagues to be knocking Shelter Scotland, but I think that we could have that conversation after today's debate. I am happy to take the intervention from the Deputy First Minister. I think that I will just make some progress, Presiding Officer. I will come back to the Deputy First Minister if he wishes to. That programme for government should have been brimming with new and radical action to reinvigorate local economies and local public services, but it is lackluster and I believe—I think that many of us do—that our communities deserve so much better. It is frustrating because the Scottish Government says that it is focused on growth. To that end, it makes no sense to shortchange local government because well-resourced public services strengthen communities and are ultimately good for the economy. Having spent my early working life in local government, I know that, with the right resources, powers and people, councils can deliver transformative change in partnership with communities. I am glad to hear that. Jeane Freeman Given everything that Ms Lennon has said, how would she then explain the local authority in my constituency, East Ayrshire Council, which has successfully built more social homes in the recent period than previously, which has the highest record, I believe, across Scotland for community involvement and asset transfer, more PAMAS toilets, which we want across all authorities. That is an SNP-led council that is managing, despite financial pressures, that it faces in common with this Government to deliver services for local people and continue to be successful. Is it, as I believe, an exemplar, unique or simply a well-run, well-managed local authority? Monica Lennon I am very impressed with the amazing work that I see in all local authorities. I think that they are all doing their best with very limited resources. On those points, it is really important that we find that best practice to celebrate it, but we have to listen to Cossla, who speaks with one voice and talks about the extreme funding pressures that all local authorities face. All too often, in this depressing austerity era, local councils are struggling to prevent and mitigate local economic shocks. They are struggling to plan for the needs of an ageing population, and they are struggling to prepare for the challenges around Brexit and beyond. At the start of my remarks, I gave the Government credit for taking on policy ideas from other parties and people outside of Parliament. The tourist tax, however, did not benefit from such goodwill. I think that it beggars belief that SNP ministers continue to deny councils the powers to raise much-needed revenues in this way, especially when there is consensus across local government and Cossla have made an excellent case. Scottish Labour is a champion for the tourist tax, because we believe that it is a win-win for visitors and communities. My appeal to ministers is to stop standing in the way of councils who want to do what is right for their own communities. Cashed-up local authorities are facing real dilemmas now. This week, for example—I am glad that the cabinet secretary for health mentioned the importance of PAMAS toilets—this week, Disability Equality Scotland spoke about the dwindling number of public toilets and the negative impact on disabled people, as well as other groups. The squeeze on public services, whether it is coming from Westminster or Holyroods, is forcing more and more people into poverty. I hope that we all agree that the Labour Administration and North Lanarkshire Council is doing brilliant work to poverty proof schools. Club 365, a scheme to tackle holiday hunger, is a shining example of the difference that councils can make. I was exceptionally proud of North Ayrshire Council when it became the first local authority in the UK to offer period products in all of its public buildings. I congratulate councillor Joe Cullinan and his officials for the speed at which they are rolling this out. I am grateful for the Scottish Government for its commitment to end-period poverty, and there is more work that we can do together on that. I believe that all councils want to do more for their communities. Scottish Labour is extremely disappointed that the programme for government is putting limits on their ambitions. In conclusion, the Scottish Government says in its programme for government that the success and wellbeing of our communities is rooted in the strength of our relationship and partnership with local government. We appreciate that sentiment, but it must be a genuine commitment from the Government backed up by action, because it is only by providing high-quality public services that can be readily accessed by the many, and not just a privileged few, that our communities and economy will truly begin to thrive and flourish. Fulton MacGregor, to be followed by Donald Cameron. I am pleased to have the opportunity to take part in this debate and the exciting programme for government, as announced by the First Minister in Tuesday. I want to focus my contribution on two areas. The further announcements are made to tackle the attainment gap and those to support children and young people's mental health. On the attainment gap, the work undertaken by the Scottish Government to address this issue through the PATH monies, which really helps schools across my constituency, is already showing results. I am pleased that there will be now even earlier intervention to tackle the issue. The announcement that the best start grant will be introduced before the end of the year is very welcome and will give children from families who are struggling a better start in life, with families already benefiting from the baby box. The Scottish Government really is focused on giving every child born in Scotland the best start possible. A key point in the best start grant is the policy that there is no limit to the amount of children mothers can have to qualify for the support, unlike the two-child policy of the Tories, which brought with it the unforgivable rape clause. Fast forward a few years, with children preparing to start school, a big worry for parents is the cost of school uniforms. The announcement from the finance secretary recently that the Scottish Government will make additional funding available to councils to pay a minimum of £100 to parents who qualify through the school uniform grant. That is a fantastic measure, and we will support those who need it most to make sure that their children are ready to start their education. Unfortunately, as a use of food banks is becoming more and more common as a result of right-wing Tory policies, so too is the use of uniform banks. I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Julia Byrn and her team at Kool School Uniforms in Coatbridge in my constituency, who have just finished their busiest time since starting out just over a year ago, helping hundreds of families to prepare children and young people starting off or returning to school. On the topic of attainment, I want to mention the fantastic club 365 initiative that Monica Lennon did, which ensures that all children and young people in Northland are not sure to receive a nutritious meal every single day. Of course, it was piloted in Coatbridge. That is an amazing initiative, but what Monica Lennon failed to mention was that it was Labour and SNP support in Northlandshire that has seen it through with the Tories, I suppose, unsurprisingly trying to block it. It was largely funded by the Scottish Government. I look forward to seeing more feedback on that project and seeing it rolled out further. Food poverty is a big thing in my constituency, and I would like to take this opportunity to also highlight that the Coatbridge food bank is totally out of supplies, so if anyone can help, please do. You will forgive me, Presiding Officer, for saying that it came as a bit of a surprise when I seen there was a Conservative Party canvas session in Coatbridge at the weekend and where they had positioned themselves ironically and probably obliviously metres from that food bank that had ran out of supplies. I want to now talk about mental health in young people. It is hard to ignore that mental health, particularly young people's mental health, is one of the biggest challenges that we face as a society at this current time, some such as the youth parliament itself, even referring to it as this generation's epidemic. In light of that, I held the Children and Young People's mental health event for Coatbridge in Christ in just last month, where I brought together local and national charities and organisations, as well as, of course, young people themselves from schools and MSYPs. That provided the before mentioned with an opportunity to discuss what they felt the challenges were to addressing young people's mental health. I pleased to say that I had some really good feedback from that event. There were some interesting and very lengthy conversations that we had and it was good to see it taking place non-politically in a very mature and constructive environment. Overall, I was widely agreed that the CAMHS service should be a last resort for those in immediate need of treatment and not the first port of call. That should be tackled through a more efficient buffering system in place between schools, GP services, CAMHS and the third sector to ensure that whatever possible mental health services are identified at the earliest opportunity and the most appropriate action is taken. Tools such as healthy coping mechanism, mindfulness, making use of exercises, exercise sorry, and access to council and services in CBTR are not the answer to all mental health issues, but they would certainly provide support and early intervention to those who are needing care. We need to ensure that there is an equality for opportunity. It was raised at this event that young people aged 16 to 18 are unable to access CAMHS unless they are in education. It should be recognised that the cause of school dropouts at a young age could be due to adverse childhood experiences, trauma and other experiences that have potential themselves to cause mental health problems. That gap was really something that concerned me and it was clear that it needed to be addressed. Although those young people are able to access mental health services, we should consider whether it is appropriate for young people to be referred to adult services simply because they have been, for whatever reason, unable to remain in education. For young people who are referred to CAMHS and are referred on, as the saying was, then this rejection has the potential to further adversely affect poor mental health. I was really pleased today when that was raised with the First Minister and she confirmed that the expanded community mental wellbeing services have been signed in a way that will be age-appropriate services for young people and that they will be able to access the health care when they need it, regardless of whether they are in education or not. I welcome that in addition to the councillors in every school that has been widely talked about today and I believe that community provision is the best way forward with commitment to resources, staff and budgets. My colleague Gillian Martin tweeted the other day that this shows that the Scottish Government is a listening Government and that this is an area where many MSPs have campaigned myself, Gillian Martin and now the Minister Claire Hoggy to name just a few. The point that I am making to the other parties here is that there are other ways to affect positive change than just constantly undermining and badmouthing Government decisions just for the sake of paper headlines to be held up here in the chamber. Presiding Officer, there are too many things in the programme for me to mention, but I want to welcome particularly the announcement that the principles of the UN convention and the rights of the child will be incorporated into Scots law and further measures to support care experience young people, including access to affordable credit. In conclusion, I look forward to the coming parliamentary year in supporting those proposals to become a reality. I am delighted to be able to contribute to this very important debate on the SNP Government's agenda for the next year, although less excited by the content of that agenda. In my view, the programme for government frankly does very little to get the juices flowing. It is full of glossy pictures and nice graphics. It is replete with general principles that many would be hard pressed to disagree with, but when it comes to the detail, regrettably it is very uninspiring. As Ruth Davidson said on Tuesday, we are now halfway through this parliamentary term, and yet we have a programme for government that lacks ambition, avoids difficult subjects and backtracks on all promises. It is also noteworthy how commentators across the political spectrum have likewise been disappointed in the days following its launch. It is striking that no-one is prepared any longer to give the SNP the benefit of the doubt. Why should they? The SNP has been in government for more than a decade, and yet the programme for government reveals just how tired its administration of Scotland has become. I cannot be alone in feeling that this is a missed opportunity. It was a perfect chance for the First Minister to reboot her Government, to set the agenda and announce bold and dynamic measures that would benefit the people of Scotland. As we approached the date when the UK is leaving the EU, here was an opportunity for the First Minister to set out her stool to describe her vision for what a post-Brexit Scotland should look like and what her political priorities would be. We all acknowledge that this is a time of political volatility and disruption, but that is precisely why creative thinking and bold policy choices should be undertaken. Stuart McMillan I thank Donald Cameron for taking the intervention. Can Mr Cameron tell the chamber what the vision is of the UK Government for the UK after it leaves the European Union? We want to achieve a deal that works for Scotland and a deal that works for Britain, but let's return to the subject in hand. I'm not surprised that the SNP don't want to talk about their own programme for government because we have a programme for government that is little more than a mixture of rehashed or re-announced policies from the past. There are elements of it that we welcome, some of which were Scottish Conservative ideas or campaigns originally. Take the south of Scotland enterprise agency that my colleague Oliver Mundell has been agitating for or Finslaw that my colleague Liam Kerr has been battling for. Other colleagues have welcomed various bills that we support. I want to focus my time left on what I think is one of the biggest emissions, which is the lack of a clear and ambitious plan for Scotland's rural communities. Can I refer to crofting and farming and forestry in my register of interests, as I do so? With Brexit only months away, the SNP Government had a perfect opportunity to provide Scotland's farms and crofters with certainty over what kind of tailored system Scotland would have in place, not just in terms of subsidy support, but in terms of a wider programme of specific policy. However, instead, we are offered... Excuse me, Mr Cameron. There are some private conversations going on here that are creating a bit of a buzz in the background. Instead, we are offered a rural economy action plan and a commitment to work on a crofting bill, both of which contain very little detail. In a programme of nearly 120 pages, the few pages also dedicated to the rural economy reveal how far down the list of SNP priorities our rural communities lie. The fact is that, despite funding guarantees on pillars 1 and 2 from the UK Government up to 2022, the SNP Government has diverted about the future of agricultural support, and only just before recess began outlining its initial views and consultation on future support. No, I am sorry, I need to make some progress. By comparison, Members will be aware that today the UK Government has announced the creation of a new pilot scheme that will provide 2,500 seasonal migrant worker visas to non-EAEA workers to help to support soft fruit and vegetable farmers, which the NFUS has described the step in the right direction. What is stark contrast with the failure of the Scottish Government to effect real and material change for Scotland's agricultural community? In last year's programme for government, the SNP promised to put the cap payment system on a secure footing and complete full digitisation of the application process for payments. This year's programme for government is silent on that. Instead, we know from a recent freedom of information request that there are still 340 businesses waiting for their payment for 2017, and even one business in the north-east is still waiting for its 2016 payment. Although I am not entirely surprised that the Government chose to omit a similar commitment in this year's programme for government, it yet again highlights the SNP's Government's inability to get to grips with its long-running saga. Similarly, Scotland's fishing communities will be less than impressed with the five paragraphs afforded to them in the programme for government, none of which mentioned post-Brexit policy. Instead, the SNP Government intends to bring forward another consultation paper, another consultation document and absolutely no concrete action, notwithstanding the fact that it is over two years since the UK voted to leave the EU. So there you have it, Deputy Presiding Officer, a programme for government that is devoid of creative thinking, a programme for government that retreads old policies, a programme for government that delivers no certainty or peace of mind for farmers and crofters and all from an SNP Government, which is quite simply letting down Scotland's rural communities. The First Minister blames Brexit for what is essentially a timid and shallow programme for government, but the reality is that this SNP Government is a busted flush and the people of Scotland deserve better. I remind all members that although debate can be robust, I expect politeness at all times. I call Tom Arthur to be followed by Alex Rowley. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I should probably start with a confession, perhaps just because of a long summer recess. I decided not to prepare any extensive speaking notes because I was expecting this afternoon to hear a raft of ideas and initiatives and policies from the Opposition Party, which would present an opportunity for engagement and dynamic debate. Alas, all that we have heard is a tired, dirge, plaintive cries of SNP bad. I think that perhaps what has been missing to some extent so far in this debate is just a modicum of context. We live in really quite extraordinary times. We have a situation where the director of the CIA in the United States is describing the US president's actions as treacherous. We have an expansive and growing China seeking to establish a new authoritarian world order. In Italy, we have the upper house of the Parliament taking away compulsory vaccinations for children. In the UK, we have seen a Conservative party engulfed over the summer, attempting to define what it means by Brexit to the extent where the deputy leader of the party has taken to social media to beg SNP MPs to block Mr Johnson and Mr Wraith Mogg. The Labour Party has spent the summer trying to work out what the definition of anti-Semitism is. Given that turmoil of both parties in that particular context, I think that the expression of tired or managerial is a bit of a compliment, because what it means in practice is a mature, serious, grown-up Government that is focused on delivering for the people of Scotland, not squabbling among themselves. I have to say that this is a substantive and an impressive and an important programme for Government. I want to start by congratulating the Government on its commitment to expanding investment in infrastructure. 1.5 billion per annum higher by 2526 is a substantial achievement. It is necessary, because we have come a long way in the past 11 years. When this Government was first elected to this Parliament, there was no complete M8, no complete M74, no Queensford crossing, no AWPR, no Queen Elizabeth university hospital, and a range of areas of substantive investment. My colleague Alasdair Allan spoke about the transformation in digital connectivity over recent years in his constituency. Across Scotland, 95 per cent of homes and business premises are connected. That is an outstanding achievement, and I am delighted that the contracts for R100 are to be imminently awarded. Again, with the Sfarmol, I could talk about more than 750 schools refurbished, 76.5 thousand affordable homes built, and a commitment to supply 750 new, extended or refurbished nurseries, and a roll-out of electrification on Scotland's roads and highways. There are many other aspects of the programme for government that I would like to talk about, but there are time limits, but let me just pick out one or two. Perhaps not spoken about in any great detail so far in this debate is a commitment to an older people's framework by March 2019. That would look to go and maximise the contribution that our older people make across Scotland. I recently met my constituency of Renfisher South up with Roar, reaching older adults across Renfisher, and they do incredible work working with older people in the community, improving digital literacy, tackling loneliness and tackling isolation. I look forward to the roll-out of the older people's framework and how it will support my constituency. I also want to take the opportunity to welcome the commencement of the carers allowance supplement. Sometimes in this job, it can be as with a sparring in the back and forth of political debate, it can be easy to forget that the decisions that we take in this place have a significant impact upon our constituents. On Monday morning, returning to my constituency office after a meeting, my staff were elated. A gentleman had come to my constituency office to see me. He was disappointed that I was not in, but he wanted to relay a message. The previous week, he had read in the Johnston Gazette, oppressively, that I put out announcing the carers allowance supplement. He had been unaware of this and he was absolutely ecstatic to learn that this has been commenced. It is going to make a significant impact upon his life. Of course, for this now, I am quite happy to let him believe that I am personally responsible for that, but it is an example of the difference that policies and decisions made in this Parliament can actually make. The final point that I want to highlight, and it was something that my colleague Bruce Crawford picked up upon, was the commitment to cover settled status fees and the commitment to legislate to ensure that EU citizens retain the right to vote. I think that this speaks to who we are as a nation. It speaks about our values as a country. I certainly condemn any politician from any party who would suggest that that is some cynical ploy to distract from other issues. What a miserable attitude to take. Let me conclude by saying that I welcome this programme for government and I look forward to supporting this legislative programme as it advances through Parliament in the coming year. This debate today on the Scottish Government programme for government and public services comes at a time when many local public services are struggling under continued austerity of a Tory Westminster Government. I want to acknowledge at the outset that it is a bit rich for the Scottish Tories to keep demanding more money to be spent on public services while supporting continued austerity and proposing tax cuts for the very richest in our society. However, the programme also comes at a time when the Scottish Government has control of a budget of over £40 billion and is failing to stand up for and protect vital public services. For the fact is that it is the Scottish Government that controls and funds most of Scotland's public services. Politicians can make claims and counterclaims and blame each other, but when it comes to public services, the general public of Scotland does not need to listen to politicians. They can see for themselves on a daily basis the impact cuts are having on local services. Why then is it that the SNP is in such denial about the state of public services in Scotland? Yesterday, I read a quote from the Deputy First Minister where he said, and I quote, "...we are determined to do more to ensure that our public services deliver for communities and major reforms are under way to improve systems and tackle inequalities." Is it not incredible that, after 11 years of being in government, of being in charge of our public services, the SNP seems to think that the problems are with systems? It is not systems or structures that are causing the problems in local services. It is the fact that £1.5 billion has been taken out of local budgets over the last eight years. The SNP says that it wants to empower people, put more power into the hands of people. I see that as code for more cuts, less services, a kind of do-it-yourself approach to public services under the guise of community empowerment. Let me take one example from the programme for government. It has invested up to £4 million across all of Scotland to ensure that head teachers have the skills, support and expertise that they need to be in charge of the key decisions in the life of their schools. Never mind the whole of Scotland if we look at just one authority, five, just one service education, there is more than £4 million being taken out of the five education budget in this year alone. Five secondary schools are taking a hit of over £2 million over two years. The SNP is saying in the programme for government that they want to empower head teachers. I ask myself to empower them to do what, because it seems that they want to empower them to make the cuts. The courier recently reported that the head of Bowerie High in Cercode is faced with the prospect of cutting subjects and guidance teachers as the school aims to make savings of £346,741 over the next two years. One parent is quoted as saying, I am distressed and angered at our school is facing this additional massive financial hardship. Five EISs have warned that cuts to many of the region's secondary schools will damage the delivery of services. The programme for government states, we want to be the best place in the world to grow up, and that means ensuring that every child has an equal chance to succeed. I agree with that, but for head teachers, parents and pupils in five secondary schools, it seems just like rhetoric, far removed from the reality that they are facing right now with the budget cuts in five secondary schools. While there are many initiatives to welcome in the programme for government, when it comes to public services, there is too much rhetoric. The reality for head teachers and teachers across Fife is that they are consulting on how to make hundreds of thousands of pounds of cuts to their school budgets this year and next year. It was a former United States education secretary that once said, even in a time of fiscal austerity, education is more than just an expense. Is it any wonder that dissatisfaction with public services in Scotland is getting worse where we have these kinds of cuts taking place in five secondary schools? Education makes up more than half of the most council's budgets, so it cannot continue to cut council budgets and then pretend somehow that it has no impact on education of our children. That just does not stack up, and parents know that to be the case. I would call on the Deputy First Minister to look at the depths of the cuts that are being made in five schools and get into dialogue with the council to find an alternative to the unacceptable situation that teachers and pupils face across the kingdom of Fife. I would urge this Government to stop the cuts to local public services, stand up for Scotland's communities and invest in Scotland's greatest asset, its people. I call Ruth Maguire to be followed by Michelle Ballantyne. Last year's programme for government contained radical and ambitious policies that were widely praised both in Scotland and beyond. The public sector pay cap has been lifted in Scotland, income tax is fairer, Scotland has become the first country in the world to implement minimum unit alcohol pricing, which has the potential to save 121 lives a year. Scotland is the only part of the UK with statutory child poverty reduction targets. We have committed to end rough sleeping and transform how we prevent and tackle homelessness, and of course we passed the landmark social security bill. Now is the time to build on those ambitions and achievements. This year, to this month, the first major new public service to be created since devolution, Social Security Scotland, will make the first payments. Carers allowance supplement will be paid to Scotland's carers, a 13 per cent increase in carers allowance, which brings it in line with jobseekers allowance. I met with carers in Irvine over the summer and heard first hand the challenges they face and the difficulty and indignity that they had experienced at the hands of the DWP. Where we have the power and responsibility, we can and we will do better. Of course, when we discuss social security related issues from child poverty to disability rights, the regrettable reality is that Scotland is more often than not acting with one hand tied behind its back, with UK Government policies taking things backwards as we legislate to move forward. We must also remember that 85 per cent of welfare powers will remain at Westminster, and even the powers that have been devolved are impacted by cuts at UK level. Even when we do not have the power, we continue to protect people from the worst excesses. I think that we can do better than that. Just imagine what we could do with the full powers returned and Scotland regaining her independence. All that time, energy and resource directed into moving forward, not into simply mitigating. Meanwhile, our new Scottish social security system, with dignity and respect as its heart, will deliver 11 benefits, including best start payment grants for low-income families, which will begin by Christmas, six months early. Best start grants will be paid for every child in a family. There will be no draconian 2 child cap from our Scottish system and no repugnant rape clause from our Scottish system. Folk who are in need of help will be supported and not demonised. Our Scottish social security system will be run for people and not for profit, and most importantly of all, every person, no exception, will be treated with dignity and respect. To be a more successful country, we need to see an overall improvement in our population health. Of course, mental wellbeing is as important as physical wellbeing. I welcome the additional £250 million to reform the way we treat poor mental health in children and adults, delivering 430 new school, college and university counsellors and fast-track specialist treatment systems for those with serious mental illness. Good perinatal maternal mental health is vitally important in improving outcomes for mothers and their young children. Poor maternal mental health can impact significantly on child development outcomes of untreated, impact on a child's emotional, cognitive and even physical development. Whilst it is not inevitable, the consequences can be serious and potentially lifelong. With all that we know about the importance of early development on a child's life, intervention and support at the earliest possible stage can really have a positive impact, preventing or mitigating issues later on. The Scottish Government's announcement that it will substantially expand the range of perinatal support available to women is good news. Providing more counselling support for less acute issues and better specialist support for moderate to acute problems is work that will ultimately prevent unnecessary suffering for women and families, and both improves children's early experiences and removes future pressures. There is an obvious human cost of undiagnosed or untreated perinatal mental illness. Additionally, if perinatal mental health problems were identified and treated quickly and effectively, serious and sometimes life-changing human and economic costs could be avoided. There has not been a lot of cheer in the chamber this afternoon. I just wanted to share some of the praise that those mental health reforms have received from outwith our party. The Richmond Fellowship approves of those reforms. Graham Smith, the general secretary of the STUC, does too, as do inspiring. Bernardus Scotland, Stephanie Fraser, the chief executive of Bullbath, Alistair Ross, head of public policy at British insurers, the president of NUS Scotland approves of them, as does Billy Watson, chief executive of Sam H. The positive response for our programme for government, the positive response that it has received from Civic Scotland, has been phenomenal, and it demonstrates the confidence that people have in our Scottish National Party Government to deliver for Scotland. Those are ambitious but achievable proposals, which I look forward to contributing to the delivery of for the people of Cunningham South and Ershire and in Scotland. The devolution of social security powers to this Parliament is the largest since inception. While I welcome the Scottish Government's announcement that the carers allowance supplement has been rolled out this month, and the best start grant will be delivered six months ahead of schedule, metaphorically speaking, we have only just entered the woods. Carers allowance supplement and the best start grant will affect many people, but let us not forget that there are far more challenging benefits yet to be delivered. Whilst the First Minister states that the delivery of the best start grant depends on the required DWP co-operation, it is also worth remembering that the DWP will continue to deliver the largest benefits alongside social security Scotland. Disability living allowance, personal independence payments, heating allowances, the best start grant and funeral expenses—all of those will be administered jointly with the DWP until 2020. While Scotland's social security agency may be open for business, it will be a while before it stands on its own two feet. On Tuesday, the First Minister was kind enough to provide us with this sheer schedule, but as the remainder of her timings on the welfare programme are still unknown, we are still in the dark. Carers allowance supplement is perhaps one of the easiest benefits to deliver. It is relatively small compared to, say, PIP, but by 2021, Social Security Scotland will be making more payments a week than it currently will in a year. A careful and accurate rollout is important, but my fear is that we will reach 2021 with PIP, DLA and winter fuel allowance being rushed to delivery. As Audit Scotland pointed out in its infamous March report, the Government will have to be careful not to fall behind as budgets tighten and deadlines loom. I was disappointed to see in the programme for government independence was once again at the forefront of SNP policy. The Government was unable to deliver the bulk of its pledges from the last programme due to its focus on constitutional wrangling. I would like to see the focus on delivering issues such as social security, and I fear that the smooth delivery of those benefits, particularly once Social Security Scotland removes its stabiliser wheels and goes it alone. The timetable proposed by the First Minister on Tuesday also raises other concerns. The work of any Government must be scrutinised, yet when it comes to social security, there is currently something of a blind spot. Carers allowance will be delivered from Monday, yet we do not have a Scottish commission on social security to hold the Government to account. Will the member accept that this Government established a brand new public service within two years? Had the unanimous support of the entire chamber for the legislation that underpins that, which drives the delivery plan, will she at least see that being a relatively new member to the social security committee? She might want to get a briefing from her colleagues and read some of the background minutes to that, and then perhaps she will understand exactly how confident we are and will be in the delivery of social security in Scotland. The DWP role in that is absolutely critical, so perhaps she could turn her attention to helping us to help them to sort themselves out. Michelle Ballantyne I am absolutely delighted that the Cabinet Secretary remains confident about delivering it, but the point is here that it is about confidence at the moment, not about actually having done it. I think that my comments, if you took them in the spirit in which they are meant, and if you listened to the rest of what I have to say today, perhaps you would start and think about how we work together, rather than making this a battle. The timetable was first proposed by the First Minister on Tuesday, where am I? Lost my place, which is probably what was meant to happen. Neither is the charter in place. This Parliament legislated that charter will contain the core principles of the system, as well as an obligation for ministers to report on any progress made on these commitments. With care as allowance coming into action and best start on the way, the charter is still on the horizon. The principles contained within the charter are meant to guide our system, so it is worrying then that the Government does not deem the charter to be essential before it starts work on the delivery of the actual benefits. However, I was struck by Stuart McMillan's words on Tuesday. Mr McMillan told the chamber, opposition parties should be thanking the Scottish Government, which is also what the cabinet secretary is asking. Mr McMillan, I would also say to you that, when it comes to Scottish social security, it should also be your party thanking the UK Government. It is, after all, the UK Government that devolved the powers making our social security system possible. It is the UK Government that contributed £200 million for the cost of implementing the new powers. It is the UK Government that is forecast to spend upwards of £2.9 million every year through the block grant. I would also like to remind the chamber that, if, as the Auditor General and the Scottish Government's own financial memorandum suggest, our demand-led system begins to run over budget, there will only be three options left to the Scottish Government. One, to cut services, which they would not want to do and we would not want to see. Two, an adjustment to the block grant, letting the UK taxpayer pick up the bill. Or three, an increase to taxes, hitting Scots again with a tax rise. For a social security system to have the unanimous support of the people of Scotland, we must bear in mind that fairness applies to claimants and to tax players. We have an obligation to both. Social security is a topic that reaches far beyond the remit of its brief. I am firmly of the view that social security should be a springboard, not a safety net. There is a correlation between the state of our economy, our schools, our health services, and the size of our social security budget. We need to get them all right. The most successful governance are those that are first able to recognise and acknowledge their country's problems and challenges and are then willing to address them by building consensus across the political chamber. If the Scottish Government is serious about getting social security right and eliminating poverty, then maybe it is time to change some of the rhetoric and language in this chamber. Clare Adamson, to be followed by George Adam. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I feel as someone who has just left the Social Security Committee that I have to comment on some of what has just been said in the chamber today. The Smith commission was an agreement between two Governments about the devolution of powers to Scotland. It was not gifted us, and we should not be thankful for it, nor should we be thankful for a UK Government whose welfare system includes sanctions, assessments of people with lifetime conditions, the rape clause and a system that has dehumanised our citizens. That is why it was so important when we put through the Social Security Bill that it included dignity and respect at its heart, because that has been sadly lacking for the UK Government and we will be thanking them for none of that. It is always a concern as one of the last backbench speakers on a debate that has lasted three days that you might be repeating some of what has been said before. I am very glad that that hopefully will not be the case this afternoon from my own speech, because there has been so much to talk about, and that is far from being a tired presentation. This is a tried and tested presentation from a Government that has been tried and tested by the Scottish people and continues to have their confidence to deliver for the people of Scotland. So many mentions have been made of some of the great and ambitious work that is coming, and we started the week with Dr Alison Allen channeling his inner back venture of choice, but today I want to channel my inner Tracy Chapman, because today I will be talking about revolution. The revolution that I am going to talk about is the fourth industrial revolution, a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, the way we work, the way we relate to one another, and the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. In the 1700s, we had the steam and water mechanical equipment revolution. In the 1800s, the division of labour, electricity and mass production came, and in the 1960s, we had electronics and IT and automated production coming to the fore. However, the next challenge, the next revolution, will be the cyber physical systems revolution, as described as the fourth industrial revolution. It is about big data, it is about the internet of things, it is about artificial intelligence and bioengineering. It is the concept of blurring our world with the technological world, and, like all technological developments, it offers both opportunity and challenges. It is already here, whether it is self-driving cars, drones, virtual assistants and the decision making and learning software and algorithms that engage in many walks of life, including the stock market. It can be used to design new drugs. We now have digital fabrication technologies interacting with the biological world. We have engineers and designers and architects compining computational divine with manufacturing. It is the symbiosis between microorganisms, our bodies and the products that we consume and even the buildings that we inhabit. It will transform our lives, and that is why I am so very glad that this programme for government is embracing data-driven innovation. Scotland is already excelling at the use of data to improve public services and we are well placed to become a global centre of excellence. That is an opportunity of the fourth industrial revolution that we should be grasping now and for the future. It is an opportunity for highly skilled, highly productive employment, building an investment already made by this Government in our centres of excellence, particularly in census, which is the centre for sensor and imaging systems. It plays a key part in developing innovation landscapes around Scotland and it enables industry innovators, university researchers to collaborate at the forefront of this technology. The £6 million digital network launched by the Scottish Government as part of this programme for government is the most advanced internet of things network in the UK. The new network called IoT Scotland will provide wireless sensor networks for applications and services to collect data from devices and send data without the need for 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi and it supports businesses developing new and innovative applications changing the way that they work. It will enable businesses to have the ability to monitor efficiency, productivity of their assets, equipment scheduling, how a building operates from day to day and at busy times and quiet times. The network could monitor office environments, lower costs by saving energy while reducing carbon footprints of buildings. It will transform every sector of our economy from agriculture to manufacturing and it presents an exciting opportunity to revolutionise the way that businesses and the public sector across Scotland work. On the launch, Ian Reid said that he is the CEO of census and he said that the forecast that there will be 25 billion IoT devices connected by 2025 and if only a small number of those will be connected to the internet using 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi. The new low-power wide area network developed as IoT Scotland is going to become increasingly important and it is the potential to disrupt the way we live today as much as the internet has changed the way we do business. It is an exciting opportunity with its challenges but we look forward to how the Government will embrace the fourth industrial revolution. Before I move on to the last speaker, can I remind members that everyone who has participated in the debate over the last three days should be present for the closing speeches unless they have been given explicit permission not to be here? It is a six-minute warning wherever you are. I now call George Adam and then we move on to closing speeches. Thank you for that warning, Presiding Officer. I am delighted to be back speaking in the chamber and even more to be discussed in the programme for government recently unveiled by our First Minister. It is certainly no secret to anyone in here that I love my constituency and being Paisley's MSP. It was great to spend much time back in my hometown and recess meeting constituents and catching up with everything that was going on, but it is equally exciting to look at the year ahead of us to take control and plan for the kind of Scotland that we all want to live in. That is exactly what the programme for government does. It looks towards the future and sets out plans to continue making Scotland a sustainable, prosperous and above all else a fair place to live. For me and my constituency in Paisley, Presiding Officer, that is extremely important, because making their lives better and having that ability is what we are all here for. One of the things that I constantly take into account in one major part of the programme is the fact that we are looking at meeting children's lives better as well. For me, I know that you will be shocked to see it, Presiding Officer, but I am a grandparent. For me, it is our grandchildren to see how we can make it better for them. However, one of the things that Tories keep talking about and they do not want to talk about is Brexit. The First Minister was right in saying that all of this hangs on the back of Brexit, which is only 204 days away. That is 204 days, Presiding Officer, for them all to decide to get everything organised. David Mundell, the Secretary of State for Scotland, was at the Justice Committee today. There was no fact that it was what I would like. I hope that there may be a case that we might be in a position to do something. I want Mundell to win the Scottish Premier League. That is not going to happen, says the mutton following the final on the corner. However, the reality is that we need to look at this, and everything that we are putting forward and the First Minister put forward is on this backdrop here. However, what sticks out to me the most is the Government's commitment to people. Sometimes it can be easy to bog down in petty party politics and disagreements, but surely we can all agree that our role as parliamentarians is to do our best for our constituents and the people of our country. That is where the programme for government stands out. At every step of the way, people are at the heart of it, and it is all with dignity and respect standing firmly at the top of the agenda. This time last year, the First Minister set out an ambitious plan to build an inclusive, fair, prosperous and innovative country, ready and willing to embrace the future. This year, she has only continued to build on that vision. When the landmark social security bill, the biggest and most revolutionary bill since the inception of this Parliament, was passed last year, thousands of people across Scotland took part in sessions to make sure that everyone felt represented and listened to. It was clear that this Government was committed to helping hard-working families and making sure that every child and young person in Scotland had the best possible means and opportunity to thrive. Scotland became the only place in the UK with statutory child poverty reduction targets, and bills set out the best grant to begin the process of tackling it. This week, the First Minister announced further plans to combat child poverty, and this programme for government outlines an additional £50 million for tackling child poverty fund. Additionally, we heard that the first payments to the best start grant will be delivered by Christmas, a full six months ahead of schedule, giving parents a low income £600 on the birth of their first baby and £300 for subsequent children to buy family essentials. On top of that, we have the introduction of the baby box. That is ensuring that our young people are supported in a key pillar of delivering for today, investing for tomorrow, an ideal which is why I am so delighted by the announcement of their new commitment to addressing mental health. The programme for government includes details of a massive £250 million health investment package that will go towards delivering 350 dedicated mental health councillors in schools, 80 additional councillors throughout, further and higher education, extra training for classroom teachers and a further 250 school nurses to offer emotional and mental health support and provide more advice for young people and their families dealing with mental health issues. That, to me, does not seem like a tired Government. That is a Government relating from the front. The only tiredness comes from the pattern and nonsense from the opposition parties. While tackling mental health issues head on in schools, colleges and universities is upmost of importance. It is also crucial to mention the commitment that the Scottish Government makes to adults with poor mental health there as well. More than ever before, they are opening up about experiencing poor mental health and recognising the right to be helped. The programme for government recognises that our approach needs to change to meet the demands of modern-day Scotland and ensure that support for good mental health is easily accessible and embedded into our public services and our culture. I am certain in the belief that this is a programme for government that really does have Scotland's best interests at heart. While living during a time of uncertainty and has the implications of Brexit still remain unclear and outwith our control, it is important that we take those bold steps to protect and advance what we can control. The programme for government does just that and ensures that we will be prepared for the future. I just say that, as we move to closing speeches, there are six members who are not in the chamber. We are not going to have time to list them all. Good luck to them. I am not doing that, but we will be writing to them because they have been well warned to be in the chamber for closing speeches. Really, we cannot do any more than that, but it is really insulting to other members who have spoken in the debate and to those who are closing. I will make that plane to them. I now call Alex Cole-Hamilton to close for the Liberal Democrats. Seven minutes, please, Mr Cole-Hamilton. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. It gives me great pride to close for my party this afternoon. I want to start with a couple of notes of goodwill. I think that it is important to start the new term in that way. I want to give thanks to those new ministers who will be delivering this programme for government with whom I met and worked over the summer months, particularly Joe Fitzpatrick for his access in respect of the deliberations around the future of HIV Scotland. I hope that we are coming to a successful conclusion on that. To Claire Hohe, who has delivered a suicide strategy, which, whilst late, has been well received. I think that it is very important going forward. I am sure that her tenure as Minister for Mental Health will be defined very much by the success of that strategy, I thank her for that. However, particularly the First Minister herself, in her proclamation about the willingness of this Government to incorporate the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scots law—something that I have been fighting for all of my adult life. However, the language around that matters, Presiding Officer. Only incorporation of all 42 articles of that treaty into Scots law will give our children access to justice. I invite either the First Minister or the Minister for Children in Early Years to intervene on me now to confirm that we will, indeed, be incorporating all those articles, and not just the principles, or maybe another time, but it is welcome progress nonetheless. I got insight into some of the fresh talent that the ministers appointed before the summer. Fresh talent, that may be. However, in the pages of the programme for government, there is the whiff of decay. It is a programme characterised by thin technical measures, a programme that makes neither no admission or offers no contrition for the failings of past public policy. It is a programme that, in many ways, represents the thin rule of managerialism, and that word is particularly apposite if the weather veins of opinion polls and unforced errors by the Government show that it is indeed managing its own decline. You can judge the effectiveness of government in the way that it deals with empirical evidence of failure and how it responds to expert and overwhelming criticism. On both accounts, it has failed to do this. Drug deaths are once again the worst in all of Europe, twice as bad as those in England, yet not one single word or pledge for new money in the First Minister's statement or programme for a government. Clamor against the compulsory testing of four and five-year-olds, and yet this is met with dogged intransigence. To the point where at FMQs today, when she was asked if Parliament, which invariably will do so, votes against these tests, whether they will be removed and still the answer is no. Nothing about the discredited treatment time guarantee, which is visited on every member in this chamber week after week by patients, sometimes in abject pain, clutching letters that promise to them that they would have their treatment begin within 12 weeks. Whereas when those 12 weeks are up, they phone their consultant to find out that they have a further 40 or sometimes 50 weeks to wait. It is not about decrying or denying that we have a problem in terms of capacity in our health service. It is about being honest with people and managing expectations about how long they would be expected to exist in that pain. There are no new commitments to workforce planning, particularly around social care or the wider NHS. I talked many times about the interruption in flow that is caused by a diminished capacity in our social care workforce, which sees people who are well and ready to go home prevented from leaving hospital because of the absence of adequate social care planning around them. However, I want to address the centrepiece of the programme for government. I am grateful that the First Minister made mental health the centrepiece of her programme for government. It should be the centrepiece of anybody's programme for government, but there is once again no acknowledgement or contrition around the fact that this week Scotland posted the worst child and adolescent mental health waiting times on record. In truth, the new money is of course welcome, but it is a quarter of what those benches have asked for in every single budget negotiation since this Parliament first sat. Is it backed up with necessary workforce planning, by which I mean that fast-tracking is absolutely vital and welcome? However, if you are fast-tracking into a tier 4 bed that is not staffed and that referral is then turned away, it is not worth the paper it is written on. We need a trauma-informed approach in all our front-line workers. Answering the call of former chief medical officer Harry Burns when he said in his review of targets that the one thing that we should be measuring, we are not currently. That is adverse childhood experiences. We need to capture them and direct support to young people who have suffered them from that point in time. I want this Government to be bolder. If it is in decline, then I say to this First Minister, I will. Emma Harper I thank you, Alex Cole-Hamilton, for taking intervention. Will you welcome the setting up of the adverse childhood experiences cross-party group? John Swinney attended the first meeting so that we can look at issues related to adverse childhood experiences, because I welcome the establishment of that group. Alex Cole-Hamilton I thank the member for the intervention. I certainly welcome it. I am a co-convener of the cross-party group on ACEs, but it is about getting the Government to take that out of Parliament and make it real in answering the call of Harry Burns. I want this Government to be bolder. If it is in decline, then I say to this First Minister, start building your legacy. Transform mental health and really transform it from cradle to grave, not just with money but with workforce planning as well and training for front-line workers who will be delivering it in the services that people depend on. Give power to teachers through a macron to listen to them on testing, listen to parents on testing, listen to children on testing and give local authorities power to raise most of their own money. I want to come to the thing that has overshadowed everything in this debate, so it overshadows all aspects of public policy. That is our position on the precipice of Brexit. The hour is late, but there is still time, First Minister, for you to swing your party behind a people's vote. We sometimes as a people make collectively bad decisions and sometimes elect Governments that are harmless, but when credited with the facts, the Liberal Democrats believe that the people who first started this process are the only people who can finish it, so please, once and for all, back for the people's vote. The Scottish Government has to deliver for the people of Scotland in the face of many challenges. Climate change, an ageing population, Brexit, austerity and with UK welfare reform, including universal credit, which is leaving thousands of Scots unable to feed themselves without emergency food aid, far from the springboard that Michelle Ballantyne supports, and every one of those challenges impacts on the demands that are placed on our public services. Those challenges and demands and how the Government intends to react to them have been discussed at length across the three days of this debate, and I would like to highlight a few in my time today. The programme for Governments' extra £250 million for mental health services has rightly been the subject of much discussion in the debate, and indeed it is very welcome. The First Minister stated that, as the stigma around mental health reduces, demand for services is rising. Reducing stigma is a good thing, it's a great thing. I thank James Dornan, who demonstrated today that being open about our mental health encourages others to do so. We know that poverty increases the risk of mental health problems and can be both a cause and a consequence of mental ill health. I welcome the First Minister's comments too on the need to do more to support mental, positive mental health. We have to address all the factors contributing to poor mental health in this country. We need to look at the economic and social causes and consequences of lives with less cash, too little money, more stress, more demands, less time to rest, to recharge, to spend time with family and friends, less time to spend with our children and young people. Those demands don't support good mental health, and we can and must do more to challenge that. That points towards a broader economic transformation, the one that Greens have been calling for, and it is not delivered in this programme for government. The three days of debate have seen much discussion of the challenges facing our NHS, and rightly so, they are considerable. We have only recently celebrated 70 years of the NHS, and we must always bear in mind the thousands of health professionals in each and every one of our constituencies and regions and the invaluable work that they do every day. I would like to draw attention to the work of Dr Margaret McCartney, a Glasgow GP and BMJ columnist. In her final column published this week, she summarised some four years of articles in a list of 30 points. They are well worth a read. For example, political infighting over the NHS, waste time, money and morale, we should seek cross-party co-operation. There is a challenge for us all. It is well worth a read, as is a writing on poverty medicine and more. When it comes to health, access to good-quality food is absolutely key. As Liam McArthur and Colin Smith have mentioned, the shelving of the good food nation bill is disappointing. In 2014, the Government's own policy paper said that there is consensus on the key concept areas for a good food nation bill, health and wellbeing, environmental sustainability, local economic prosperity, resilient communities and fairness in the food chain. That vision and the opportunity for radical world-leading legislation on food has been gradually eroded, and in this year's programme for government, it has been watered down to nothing more than a branding exercise for Scottish food and drink sectors. On transport, the commitment to expand the electric vehicle charging network is a really welcome step. Yes, electric vehicles are better for us and our planet than diesel and petrol, but they are only part of the solution. While an electric car traffic jam generates less air pollution, it does not cut congestion in the way in investing properly in the greenest mass public transit wood, so we have to tackle falling bus numbers. Let's make sure that everyone in Scotland has access to the service that we here in Lothian enjoy. We need more of this quality and we need it quickly. Of course, electric cars will never tackle obesity and inactivity in the way that they invest in active travel wood. Doubling the active travel budget last year was a step in the right direction, but surely that cannot be the end of it. On Tuesday evening, in this building, three cross-party groups met jointly, cycling, walking and buses, lung health, heart disease and stroke. There were so many notable experts gathered in that room, one of whom noted that if the active travel budget was 10 per cent of the transport budget, my own party's policy, it would currently be £200 million. As Alex Cole-Hamilton mentioned, enshrining children's rights in Scotland is hugely welcome, but I and many in the children's sector want to know whether the Government intends for it to be binding. Will it incorporate the substantial articles and the optional protocols of the UNCRC itself into law, not just the principles? We would like information on the timescale. Will it happen in this session of Parliament? With others, I welcome the establishment of an animal welfare commission to provide expert advice on the welfare of domesticated and wild animals in Scotland. Such a body is badly needed. Had it been in place last year, perhaps we wouldn't have reintroduced tail docking for no good reason whatsoever in the face of expert veterinary evidence. With policy based on scientific evidence, backed with political will, we might see an end to the culling of mountain hares on Scotland's Grouse Moors, the granting of licences to cull ravens and end to live exports. Of course, we have all the evidence that we need right now to properly ban fox hunting. In fact, this Parliament thought that it had done that in 2002. While the Government hesitates in the face of overwhelming public support, I will continue my work with all who share this aim to achieve that. Presiding Officer, Greens will continue to be critical where criticism is just and fair. We will be constructively critical. We will, of course, continue to and look forward to working with colleagues where common ground exists. Thank you very much. I call Anna Sarwar to close for labour. Seven minutes, please, Mr Sarwar. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Can I start by welcoming Jeane Freeman to her new role? I'm sure that over time we will, without doubt, have robust debates, but the future of our NHS is central to the future of Scotland—how we tackle inequality, to improve the lives of our fellow citizens, to the wider message about the type of society and country that we want Scotland to be. The values that our NHS speaks to are so much more than just the day-to-day care and treatment of patients. I want to be clear that I and us on those benches will work with and support the new cabinet secretary and her team wherever possible to deliver an NHS fit, not just for the challenges of today but for the challenge of delivering a health service fit for the future. There are large parts of the programme for government that we welcome and support. In particular, the First Minister's adoption of Labour's policy on mental health councillors in schools and for school nurses to provide mental health support is a positive one. I welcome proposals for teachers to have first-aid mental health training, but that has to be seen in the context of a failure by this Government on child and adolescent mental health services, a national scandal feeling a generation of young people the worst statistics on record. I welcome the First Minister's announcement on community wellbeing services for young people. Again, we have been raising from those benches these issues for some time and the urgent need for the Scottish Government to wake up to the crisis in mental health services. One example of that was just before the recess when we worked with the Government to instigate a review of mental health services in NHS Tayside. We look forward to seeing an update on that work and we hope that the lessons of that review will have lessons not just for NHS Tayside but for mental health services across the whole of Scotland. I welcome, as those announcements are. It is sad to say that the programme for government is nothing more than a sticking plaster approach, a timid affair that completely fails to address the big issues at the heart of the crisis in Scotland's NHS and the future of Scotland's public services more widely. The most up-to-date figures show an NHS struggling to cope despite the efforts of our amazing NHS staff. The minimum standard on detecting cancer early not met. Cancer waiting times not met and getting worse. One in six cancer patients waiting longer than they should for treatment. That is just not failing cancer patients, it is failing their families too. The SNP flagship treatment time guarantee failed and getting worse month on month, year on year. The referral to treatment standard failing and getting worse is a consistent downward spiral since 2014, and sickness absent rates on the up to. On the face of increased pressure and too few colleagues alongside them, is it any wonder that our NHS staff are paying a heavy price for the pressures being heaped upon them by this Government? The vital signs are not good, the patient is in urgent need of help, and that is why Scottish Labour has the right prescription for the NHS, to use the tax powers of the Scottish Parliament to deliver more money for our NHS. Asking health boards to make over £1 billion of cuts over the next four years is not going to reduce waiting times. We need a cross-party, across-government approach. We should have health inequality assessment at every level of government across every policy to make sure that it has a positive impact on health outcomes. Above all, Scotland's NHS needs a credible and deliverable workforce plan to learn the lessons of a First Minister when she was health secretary, cutting the number of training places with devastating effect. We also need to have urgent accident emergency-style services for mental health patients too if we are to have a generational shift in attitudes and treatment to mental health. We also need to see patients getting access to vital, life-saving medicines. I hope that, in this parliamentary term, we do not have to have patients standing outside of this Parliament telling their intimate stories on the front pages of newspapers or protesting outside Parliament in order to get the vital medicines that they need. That should be a fundamental right. To build into the next generation a culture of health and wellbeing, we would deliver access to free sport and a bold obesity strategy so that we can prioritise prevention and promote good health and wellbeing. As was raised by Alex Rowley and Monica Lennon today, we cannot continue to protect public services in the face of huge cuts to local government budgets because our pressures in our hospitals are now heaping even more pressures on our social care sector for tens of thousands of our fellow Scots. We still have the shame of the 15-minute care visit in some places down to 10 minutes or 12 minutes. There is a generation of children, Scotland's futures and schools, who are in classrooms that are growing in size, pass rates are falling and teachers are in too short a supply, as was raised by Ian Gray today. Just like the NHS, how we invest in and care for our public services more generally speaks to our values as a nation. What we would have hoped for from this programme for Government is not just that continuation of a sticking plaster approach, but a fundamental rethink about how we properly fund our public services here in Scotland, and then not how we just fund our public services, but how we fundamentally change how we deliver our public services to meet the needs of our fellow citizens, to fight inequality, to fight poverty and to create prosperity across our country. Where is the vision for the economy that will provide the wealth to fund those public services and for people to live the lives that they want to live and to bring up the children the way they want to in our Scotland? Where was the vision to unite our country behind our shared values and shared principles when the principles of unity no longer seem to be politically fashionable? That is what we needed from this programme for Government, not just more repeated announcements and regurgitated press releases from the First Minister. What did we hear from the SNP benches? We heard lots of members say why aren't the opposition politicians thanking us? Why aren't they being the cheerleaders? The reality is that there are enough SNP cheerleaders on the back benches. What we need is opposition and scrutiny of a Government that is running out of ideas and running out of time. The sad reality is that this Government has missed the opportunity to transform Scotland. In reality, there is only one party offering the real change that this country needs. There is only one party with bold and radical policies to transform our country, to transform our public services and to transform our economy of this great country, too. That is the Scottish Labour Party. Thank you. I call Jackson Carlaw to close for the Conservatives nine minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It has been my duty to listen with all care and attention to each and every contribution over the last three afternoons. I wish I could report that it has been an unalloyed joy. In fact, no, I am going to be positive. It has been an unalloyed joy. It has been the highlight of my summer. More precisely, Presiding Officer, on Tuesday, we returned from a long summer recess in a year without a national election. Holyrood should have been fizzing with anticipation as Nicola Sturgeon announced her programme for the year ahead. After all, she was surrounded by carefully placed new ministers who, only two months ago, she said, represented the refresh of her administration promised a year earlier. SNP MSP should have been bouncing with energy and vigor. I can recall earlier programme announcements by Mr Sturgeon's predecessor, which were interrupted by cheers and boisterous, even bumpious applause, from which accusation I should say John Mason specifically asked to be accused during yesterday's contribution in the debate, not his style, he said. But in any event, not on Tuesday, almost from the minute the First Minister got to her feet, the energy seeped out of the chamber. As her voice tired with an obvious lack of interest in her own announcements, so too did the reaction from behind her. Conversations broke out, eyes glazed over and wandered, her MSPs concentrated elsewhere. This was the address of a First Minister running out of passion, steam and crucially time. Lacking the ability of her predecessor, Alex Salmond, still revered by so many around her as a nationalist prophet to generate momentum. Announcing one programme this year after to failing to deliver her programme from just a year ago, bills described by her then as vital, abandoned or struggling to progress past their first stage, a record number of paralysed legislative priorities. Indeed, the first and only robust applause on Tuesday afternoon from the subservient acolytes ranged behind her was for guess what, yes, the eye word. Whatever the day, whatever the hour, whatever the circumstance, whether national disasters and challenges or internal allegations of sexual misconduct, Nicola Sturgeon incorporates the eye word into every each and every statement. It really does transcend everything. A long time in politics, I was puzzled in Tuesday afternoon by a memory from the past. A former Prime Minister, one of the giants of UK politics, like Nicola Sturgeon in the final months in office, her party still applauded her loudly even while they knew in the doorsteps just as the SNP now knows how polarising she had become. They rushed to chuck insults at their opponents even as the public embraced the truth. By the next election, Nicola Sturgeon will have been First Minister for almost as long as was Alex Salmond. Between them, they will have exhausted 14 years of the public's patience. I heard Humza Yousaf attack Willie Rennie from a seated position on Tuesday, but we are ahead in the polls, the final refuge of the complacent minister. Being ahead in the polls is no guarantee of electoral triumph, as any student of the last two years should know. Be in no doubt, despite the typically bravura performance I anticipate in a few minutes from John Swinney, this is a government of yesterday's women and men, drifting in search of a purpose beyond the eye word, struggling to account for an increasing record of failure, offering Scotland a programme of fancy rhetoric but ultimately spin over substance and with a despairingly poor record of delivery under this First Minister. Throughout all of Tuesday, I searched for Derek Mackay, who was finally spotted sitting as far back in the chamber as he was, almost in the public gallery. Yesterday, I understood why. He was putting clear distance between himself and the front bench as he had a leadership bed speech to make. Sporting an ice-blue-white tie to match his increasingly ice-white blue quaffure. Mr Mackay opened yesterday with more energy and zest than all the SNP contributions from before or after. In his contribution, the leader of the Labour Party spent much of his speech recalling his tour of the different communities in Scotland throughout the summer recess. Sadly, that did not include a visit to the Jewish community in my eastward constituency in the west of Scotland, where some 40 per cent of Scotland's Jewish community live. Mr Leonard's deference to the ever-evolving but consistently disgraceful record and ambition— Can I just talk to you a minute, Mr Carlaw? I'm wondering where this is relevant to the Government's programme in the coming year. I'm commenting on the debate, Presiding Officer. And Mr Leonard introduced the tour that he made of all the constituencies in the community. Yes, I heard that, but I just caution you. It is a debate on the Government's programme for the coming year. Just cautioning you. And it's a serious point I want to make, Presiding Officer. It is a serious point. You've made it. Please proceed. I haven't actually made it, but... Don't discuss it with me. It's not a discussion. You're asking me not to make it. Yes, just continue with the Government's programme. Willie Rennie tried to revive matters on Tuesday with some bad but passable jokes, which I'm sure he felt deserved more appreciation. His speech, however, was less about the Government's programme and about his people's vote. As a midwife to referendums, I recall the crucial support for the EU referendum in the votes in the House of Commons from the Liberal Democrats and Labour for that matter. Mr Rennie wants another. Having failed to accept the vote for the first one, he wants another. No doubt another again if he does not give him the answer that he demands. This, too, was the import of Mr Russell's speech. He said barely anything about the Government's programme. However, I noted with interest the comments of the former SNP Minister, Marko Biagi, in the last few weeks, where in talking about our democracy, he coined the phrase that our democracy depends on losers' consent. It was precisely for this principle that, in 2014, when I was asked in a BBC programme, I think with Bob Doris who spoke in the debate alongside me, what I would do if Scotland had then voted for independence, I replied without hesitation that however I had voted, if that had been the result, I would have manned the barricades with the SNP, a phrase recalled by Alex Salmond later, to secure the best possible deal for Scotland leaving the UK. I wouldn't have liked it, but losers' consent would have dictated my duty. I don't imagine that Alex Salmond would then have asked me to lead those negotiations, or to have a veto over them, although the SNP would have spoken well of me simply arguing against all that they sought or trying to undermine that negotiation. Yet this seems to me to be the hand Mr Russell and Nicola Sturgeon have chosen to play. Instead of working with every endeavour to support the achievement of the best possible outcome, the SNP has been aggressively frustrating our joint preparation and participation. I get that they do not want to leave, neither did I, but, as their former colleague Mark Obiadgy stated, democracy depends on all working together to achieve that deal, particularly all those who seek a pragmatic, negotiated withdrawal and not a hard, dealless Brexit. Elsewhere in the debate, there were impressive contributions. Daniel Johnston, our articulate and forensic speech demonstrated that promises made in justice by this administration are simply not being delivered, but it was Liam Kerr who welcomed a commitment to Finn's law, which he has championed, who welcomed a U-turn in British Transport Police, for which he has led the campaign, and who spoke in support of Michelle's law, on which he led a debate earlier today. Maurice Golden demonstrated the failure of the SNP to meet nearly all of the environmental targets that they have set for themselves. Of the new ministers, may I say that the best of them proved to be Jeane Freeman. John Mason gave a thoughtful speech, which I enjoyed, and in his analysis spoke challengelly to all sides on certain issues in a way that I believe deserves some reflection. Strong speeches to today from Ian Gray, Miles Briggs, Alec Neill and Liz Smith. Presiding Officer, the clock is ticking. The First Minister is no longer new to her job and certainly not new to Government. Increasingly, hers is a record of poor delivery. Even in the opening paragraphs of her introduction to the published programme for government document, the First Minister dwells too often on the achievements of her predecessor in past administrations and not on the current one that she leads. This was meant to be a refreshed front bench. It already looks and feels just as hard as the one that it replaced. A year after the SNP lost a record half a million votes, not in an opinion poll but in a single real election, and saw the greatest number of MPs defeated ever such a short time after their initial election, it's a Government whose time looks over, a Government celebrating yesterday. Twelve years ago, the SNP slogan was its time. Today it's time's up. Time to make way for those who can deliver for Scotland the change that we increasingly seek as a prosperous and dynamic Scotland within a prosperous and dynamic United Kingdom. I call on John Swinney to close with the cabinet secretary. 11 minutes are there abouts please. Presiding Officer, the two observations that I would make on the speech that we've heard from Jackson Carlaw are those. The first is that in nine minutes there wasn't a single constructive idea that would take Scotland forward as a consequence of that. Secondly, there was just a bundle of abuse churned out from one speaker to another from Jackson Carlaw, the worst of which was accusing Willie Rennie of saying bad but passable jokes, coming from Jackson Carlaw that is an insult of the lowest level to Willie Rennie and I won't have it. There's been a lot of characterisation of this debate about the pace and the enthusiasm and the energy of the debate or the Government, but I thought the characterisation of the debate and the programme for government was best put into its context by Ruth McQuire and George Adam. What they said was that the Government came to Parliament last year with a radical programme to transform some of the fundamental issues that face our country today and what we have set out today are the further steps that will be taken to implement that progress. When I, of course, I'll take an intervention, yes? Liz Smith. I'm very grateful to him for taking an intervention. This time last year, the education bill was supposed to be one of these things. What happened to it? Cabinet Secretary? In a few words, we're getting on with implementing the policy intention of the education bill. That's exactly what we're doing. I thought that people were supposed to pay attention in this Parliament, but yesterday I spent an hour at the education committee explaining this very point to Liz Smith to the exhaustion of the education committee, the exhaustion of their patients and she still hasn't managed to get it. We are implementing the policy of empowering schools. That's what the Government is doing in our agenda. That's not the only thing that has been taken forward from the programme for government last year. Last year, we started the application, as Alex Neil talked about in his contribution, of the statutory child poverty reduction targets—a huge initiative to safeguard the wellbeing and the opportunity of some of the most vulnerable children in our society. We have taken forward the establishment of the Scottish National Investment Bank to contribute significantly to building on the very strong investment record of the Government in transforming the infrastructure of the country. Tom Arthur made a very strong contribution to the debate, going through what has happened to the infrastructure of this country since this Government came to office. The completion of the motorway network between Edinburgh and Glasgow, the upgrade to the M74, the electrification of numerous rail links, the length and breadth of the country, the enhancement of the capacity in the rail network, the achievement of 95 per cent of broadband connectivity and the commitment to complete that task in the course of this parliamentary term. The schools investment programme, literally every week of my period as cabinet secretary for education, I have been seeing the development of investments in new and refurbished school infrastructure, the length and breadth of the country, to the extent that, while we came to office 11 years ago, 61 per cent of young people were educated in schools that were good or satisfactory, and that figure is now 86 per cent thanks to the investment of this Scottish National Party Government. A substantial amount has been achieved, but of course there are always further challenges that the Government has to face and to address. I want to concentrate on three of them in the course of my remarks today. The first is about the measures that we are taking to support young people and to advance their opportunities. Through a series of measures, starting as we announced in the programme for Government today, of the expansion of perinatal care services and support to pregnant mothers, to the delivery of the baby box, where we are now seeing huge participation in the delivery of the baby box around the country, and from what I can see, an appreciation and a valuing of that commitment to every child when they are born, being given some support from the state, from the country to say to every child that they are equal and valued and precious, and that is at the heart of the idea behind the baby box, symbolising our attitude to ensuring that every child should have the best start in life. Advancing into the expansion of early learning in childcare, I was at an earlier centre in Edinburgh this morning, which is already operating 1140 hours seamlessly within the city of Edinburgh. It is a fantastic transformation for the staff who are saying to me that access to early learning is transforming the opportunities of individual children. Then, into the investment that we are making in pupil equity funding and the attainment challenge, we are focused on ensuring that the children and young people who have the greatest challenges in life are able to receive the best support and the additional support to enable them to overcome the burden of poverty, which I accept, Mr Rowley. It is an obstacle and a challenge for young people in what they have to face, but we are putting in the targeted resources to help them to overcome those challenges. Then, yes, the education reform programme, where the Government committed itself in 2016 to empowering schools in our manifesto, the Parliament said to us to go out to the communities and engage and discuss. We reached an agreement with local government about how to empower schools, how to put in place a headteacher's charter, which would do it quicker, earlier and faster than waiting for legislation, and which education secretary would turn down the opportunity to deliver reform faster than could be delivered through legislation. That is exactly the option that I have taken. Of whether it is the investment that we are making across Government, whether it is in Jeane Freeman's portfolio or Aileen Campbell's portfolio or in Shirley-Anne Somerville's portfolio or in Hamza Yousas's portfolio, to tackle the consequences of adverse childhood experiences, which we recognise to be central to determining some of the impacts that young people and adults will face throughout their lives. We, as a state, will have to wrestle with into the bargain of making sure that we have cross-cutting Government activity to tackle the impact of adverse childhood experiences. Of course, I will give way. Neil Findlay I have mentioned child poverty and cross-cutting interventions. Jenny Marra raised the day that a thousand people have died from drug deaths. If this was flu or meningitis or measles or something else that was contagious—something like that—there would be a national emergency with cross-cutting interventions, money and working groups. Why are we not doing this and why are we not declaring this as a national public health emergency? I am in agreement with Mr Findlay about the significance of this issue. I would contend that Government is working across portfolio to do exactly on the issue of drug deaths, what we are doing about adverse childhood experiences, to ensure that we have the measures and interventions that are complementary across the policy spectrum that are designed to achieve that objective. I give Mr Findlay the assurance that across Government and Aileen Campbell is leading this work in encouraging cross-portfolio activity within Government to make sure that objectives of that type, which Mr Findlay fairly raises with me, are tackled right across Government. If I can just add to that, because I do appreciate that commitment to working across portfolios. I did write to three different cab sex, including yourself before the reshuffle, about the number of children and young people in 51,000 Scotland who are affected by alcohol harm in their families, and many more who are affected by drugs too. I have not yet seen any commitment or practical steps that will be taken to address that in a cross-cutting way, so I can keep that on the table, please. My comments are just as relevant to the issue that Monica Lennon raises with me, because I accept whether it is poverty, alcohol, neglect or drugs use. That is going to be an impediment to a young person fulfilling their potential in the education system, and if they do not fulfil their potential in the education system, they will have consequences later in life into the bargain. The Government is working across portfolio in that way. I delivered a lecture to Apex Scotland on Tuesday night, which set out the cross-cutting work that is going on within Government on adverse childhood experiences, and the thinking and rationale of that is applied on many of the questions that Monica Lennon raises with me. Let me briefly touch on the two other major issues, which are the radical substance at the heart of this agenda, and that is on mental health, where Mr Donan gave an absolutely outstanding speech of personal honesty and integrity of the impact of mental health. The Government is pleased with the measures that have been set out in the programme for government that have been widely welcomed to ensure that we have steps in place to support the mental wellbeing of individuals. Thirdly, on the national infrastructure mission, where the commitment that is set out by the France Secretary about the increase in capital expenditure to £1.5 billion above 2019-2020 levels by the middle of the next decade is a very clear indication of the importance, particularly in a post-Brexit climate, of investing in the capital estate of the country to ensure that that is an investment in employment and productivity within the Scottish economy. I want to close on two final observations about some of the contribution of the Opposition, and both of them are about some things that the Conservatives have said to us. First of all, Miles Briggs had the nerve, the total brass neck, to demand that Government spend more money on something while similarly arguing for tax cuts from the Conservative party's point of view. The Tory party will be hounded on this point, mark my words, because you cannot call for more money and demand reductions in tax for individuals. It is hypocrisy of the lowest level from the Tory party. Miles Briggs. The cabinet secretary will be aware of a £2 billion in extra funding coming to our health service and how that can make a huge change to our health services. However, let me tell you, I spent time back in Perth, where I grew up, meeting with your constituents. What they told me was actually what has happened to our health service in Perth. Under your watch as the MSP, emergency service surgery, cut from PRI, weekend GP out of services, cut from PRI, maternity ward closed from PRI, pediatrics cut from PRI, pathology cut from PRI. I will take no lectures about SNP's centralisation of our health service. I will take no lessons from Tory scaremongering and Tory hypocrisy. Briggs' colleague Murdo Fraser was caught wondering where the talk of removing A and E cover from Perth Royal Infirmary had come from, only to find that the source of the ridiculous scaremongering story was Murdo Fraser himself. And my final delicate observation on the day, my last moment of unbelievable lack of self-awareness from the Conservatives, was Donald Cameron telling us that what was missing from the programme for government was the First Minister's explanation of a post-Brexit vision for Scotland. We are terrified by the post-Brexit vision for Scotland because of the fact that the Tory party has inflicted upon us and on this country. And for Jackson Carlaw to say that we have not tried to come forward with positive suggestions about how the UK will laugh. How about continuing membership of the single market? How about continued membership of the customs union? The First Minister and Mr Russell have exhausted every conversation in Whitehall. They have tried to get somebody there to open their ears to listen to something sensible, but the Tories are so divided, they are so damaged by this whole issue, they are going to take the country down with us, the Tories should be ashamed of their shocking contribution on this issue. Thank you very much, and that concludes our debate on the Scottish Government's programme for government. The next item of business is consideration of three parliamentary bureau motions. Could I ask Graeme Dey on behalf of the bureau to move motions 1, 3, 7, 8, 1 on committee remits in size, 1, 3, 7, 8, 2 on committee membership, and 1, 3, 7, 8, 3 on substitution on committees? Move, Presiding Officer. We turn now to decision time. I propose to ask a single question on all three questions. Does anyone object? No, it does, that's good. Therefore, the question is that motions 1, 3, 7, 8, 1, 1, 3, 7, 8, 2 and 1, 3, 7, 8, 3 are agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed, and that concludes decision time. I close this meeting.