 Gwad iechyd, the next item of business is portfolio questions on finance, economy and fair work. Question 1 might rumbles please. To ask the Scottish Government how it ensures that its management of public finances takes account of the needs of the people of the north-east of Scotland region. Minister Creighton Forbes. The 2019-20 budget maintains our social contract provides support for the economy and protects the public services for the people of the north-east and for all of Arreidd, niall y byw peth nifer o ddull ffordd gan Fyginfodd Aberdeen gyda'r newid goundfyniaeth mewn pwylfaeth iawn pobl i gynnig o'r iawn mae a'r lleif wnaeth, a'r casfoc i ofasau i Gwladianiaith Averdeinn, ac Iwerddshire. Mae Fyginfoddúr, dwi fawr, ond ddaw nhw ar lyfr yn ddiweddol iawn ffordd i ni Alladol Fyginfodd yn ddiweddol iawn i ni, a'r Fyginfodd ar Llyfriddysgwr, i ni i ni i ni the second and third worst-funded councils in the country. Coupled with that, the Scottish Government have underfunded Grampian health board by £239 million over the last 10 years under its own funding formula. How long does she believe that people of the north-east will put up with this underfunding, particularly of our health board, which results in such long waits for treatment? Of course, Mr Rumbles entirely absented himself from all decisions on public finances. However, for the second year running, NHS Grampian will receive the highest uplift of any territorial health board in Scotland, taking the board's funding to £958 million in 1920. That is an increase of over 64 per cent under this Government. Over the last five years, NHS Grampian has received more than £56 million for the specific purpose of moving towards NHS Scotland resource allocation committee parity. Bill Bowman, briefly. The Audit Scotland report NHS Scotland states that there was an £899 million total maintenance backlog in 2017-18. According to the report, 45 per cent of all backlog maintenance for NHS Scotland is classed as significant or high risk and NHS Tayside in the north-east region, 74 per cent is classed as significant or high risk. Will the Scottish Government commit to allocating NHS Tayside funding so that my constituents' needs are met and, in Angus and Dundee, they do not receive their healthier buildings with equipment, which is a need of significant or high risk repairs? No point morebling on that, minister. The member for that question will be fully aware that the Scottish Government is committed, first of all, to increased funding for the NHS, but also driving a programme of reform to ensure that everybody in Scotland gets access to the health services that they need. As I have already outlined to Mike Rumbles, in this year's budget there was increased finances and I have already outlined in particular with regard to NHS Grampian how much additional funding has been made available to ensure that there is adequate support for the health services in the north-east of Scotland. Jackie Baillie also briefly. In the north-east of Scotland and indeed across the country, small businesses account for 98 per cent of our business community, yet a recent report from the FSB revealed that only about 20 per cent of Scotland's £12 billion procurement budget goes directly to SMEs. Can I ask the minister what action she will take to improve small business share of our procurement pot? I thank the member for that question and, of course, we are committed to supporting small businesses. That is why we have the most generous rates relief in the entirety of the UK and that includes taking 100,000 small businesses out of paying rates altogether. In terms of procurement, I agree with her that, often getting the procurement policy right allows small businesses to get their foot in the door and we have committed to change and reconsider the way in which we do procurement. One of the most exciting initiatives that we have currently is the CivTech programme, which allows us to totally rethink procurement and give small entrepreneurs in particular the opportunity to get public sector contracts and, as I said, get their foot in the door. To ask the Scottish Government how the tax changes in its budget will impact on its own employees. Under our Scottish income tax policy, 55 per cent of taxpayers are better off than if they lived elsewhere in the UK. 70 per cent of public sector workers, covered by our pay policy, will get a 3 per cent pay award next year. So, when you combine our progressive pay and income tax policies, our lowest-paid employees after tax will be £628 or 3.3 per cent better off in 2019-20, ensuring that our public services are well funded and the people who deliver them are fairly paid. I thank the cabinet secretary for his response. There will be thousands of employees of the Scottish Government and its agencies working in Glasgow and Edinburgh with attached workplace parking, who face being hit by the new car park tax, thanks to the SNP-run councils in those areas who are talking about introducing them. What assessment has the Scottish Government done of the likely overall cost to its own finances from the car park tax that has been introduced? Does it intend to pay the tax itself or will it pass it on to its employees? As Murdo Fraser knows, the question is premature, because the legislation hasn't even been taken through Parliament yet. Murdo Fraser now wants to debate rather than a question. I quite enjoy that, but the question is what costings can be achieved. The legislation hasn't gone through Parliament, and naturally Parliament will engage with that question as it does work its way through Parliament. Interestingly, Murdo Fraser said that it was in your budget. For financial year 2019-20, there was spend of £42.5 billion for Scotland's public services. I know workplace parking levy will not be initiated in that financial year. In that respect, and in that regard, no, it is not in the budget. What assessment has the Scottish Government made of the potential economic impact of the new national park? The Scottish Government has no plans for any new national parks and has therefore not undertaken any economic impact assessment. Finlay Carson. As a highlighted error this week, the economy of Galloway is struggling with annual average weekly earnings 10 per cent lower than the rest of Scotland. Research and start contracts for the Cairngorms national park highlights that unemployment rate was just 3.2 per cent and 9,500 people are employed. More importantly, it also shows that young people are coming from that area and more people are coming to that area unless youngsters are leaving. Will the cabinet secretary recognise the economic opportunities for young people that national park designation would bring and that legislation for creating additional national parks allows for sustainable economic development to be a priority? No, that is plenty. Cabinet secretary. I have not asked the question yet. I got lost in the long peripheral to it. Could you perhaps just now briefly ask your question and not write another paragraph? That the economic impact can be only realised when this Government commits to plans for a feasibility study for the Galloway national park. That is it. Thank you. Is there a question in there somewhere? I think that I got more of a question before Mr Carson was cut off than I did and what was supposedly the question. I want to be supportive here insofar as to say that if the campaign for a national park was to sterilise a whole part of the country in the south of Scotland, I do not think that that would be welcome in terms of not allowing those economic opportunities to be realised. However, what I heard Finlay Carson talk about was actually delivering economic opportunities. Therefore, if that is to be explored further, I would be interested in how that can unlock economic opportunities entirely in the fashion that was debated this week in terms of legislating for a south of Scotland enterprise agency, which is a vehicle for delivering economic growth. I am interested to hear further as to how any campaign for a new national park will add to economic opportunity and sustainable development, as opposed to stymie that development. However, that is principally a matter for the Minister for Rural Affairs, who I know has met the member. I think that we will be happy to continue to do so to explore that subject. To ask the Scottish Government what assessment the finance secretary has made on the impact on business rates of its proposed working place parking levy. The workplace parking levy would be a power for local authorities, not the Scottish Government. It would therefore be for local authorities to conduct an impact analysis on any scheme that they might propose, should they wish to use these discretionary powers. Oh, well, there you go, not our fault, but let's go through this. The businesses that have the working place car parking levy imposed on them will seek to review their rent and, thus, their rateable value. If every local authority induces the levy, how much do you suspect that the revenue from business rates across Scotland will be reduced? That must have been part of the assessment when you introduced the proposal. Can you please not use the U-term when speaking to a member in the chamber than the person who has used it, minister? Of course. The most interesting thing in all of this is that the member's party in the UK Government agreed to keep the levy on the statute book in 2011, and so his party currently presides over a workplace parking levy right now. On to the point of non-domestic rates. Of course, if rateable values do change, whether that goes up or perhaps goes down, the Scottish Fiscal Commission would be expected to forecast the impact as part of its statutory duties, but, as I said at the beginning, that is a power for local authorities. As the member knows, there is a case here of parliamentary scrutiny and parliamentary process, and the workplace parking levy will be subjected to both. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress of the Advanced Manufacturing Challenge Fund. I am pleased to confirm that strong progress has been made in the development of the Advanced Manufacturing Challenge Fund. Approval for our plans has now been received from the manager authority, which is overall responsibility for supervision and implementation of the European structural funds in Scotland. We have appointed Scottish Enterprise as a lead partner for our programme delivery with an experienced and focused team now in place to develop the funds' detailed guidance and structures. We are preparing to launch the fund in late spring and early summer. The fund will target up to £18 million of European regional development funding to support the provision of services for improving manufacturing, productivity and efficiency. I thank the minister for that answer. As he will know, Dunrae is a major employer in my constituency, and the minister will be aware that it is in its decommissioning phase. Can I outline what support from the economic action plan seeks to respond to the rapidly changing skills needs of businesses and employees? Can or is being offered to the workers and the supply chain in Caithness in North Sutherland? The economic action plan sets out our ambition to ensure Scotland has a skilled and productive workforce in the future and includes an important focus on the skills needs of the existing workforce. This year, we will publish a future skills action plan to meet the opportunities and challenges presented by changes in the labour market and a new national retraining partnership to establish how best to support the upskilling, reskilling and development needs of the existing workforce. The Scottish Government is an active member of the Caithness and North Sutherland regeneration partnership, which aims to address the socioeconomic effects of decommissioning at Dunrae, and I am aware that Gail Ross is a member of the advisory board. The partnership is developing a local skills investment plan for the area with Skills Development Scotland, Highland Council and Caithness Chamber of Commerce. That will provide area-based information on appropriate skills and learning pathways to help individuals and employers to implement workforce transition and reskilling opportunities. Dean Lockhart, briefly. Under the UK Government's industrial strategy challenge fund, £4.7 billion is available for investment in research and development across the UK. What specific steps is he taking to ensure that the Scottish manufacturing sector will fully benefit from the unprecedented level of funding? There is a range of activity going on to encourage businesses in Scotland, whether they are SMEs or larger businesses, to co-operate with academic institutions to put forward bids for money from the industrial strategy fund. That is happening across a range of sectors that I engage with, be it manufacturing, be it life sciences, where we have had some significant successes in that fund, or other sectors across the economy. I am aware that my colleague, the cabinet secretary, is meeting with Greg Clark next week to discuss this filler and explore how Scotland can get at least its fair share of investment from that fund. To ask the Scottish Government what the impact has been on the economy of Aberdeen and the north-east of business uncertainty resulting from Brexit. Brexit is already impacting the Scottish economy with the associated uncertainty, impacting business and consumer confidence, and leading to increased stockpiling and reduced investment intentions. We recently published a report showing that all areas in Scotland will be affected by Brexit, particularly by a no-deal Brexit, with the north-east particularly hit all sectors. It showed how the north-east in areas in the north-east would be specifically hit. Although there is no broad consensus in the UK Parliament for the Prime Minister's Brexit deal, the decision should be put back to the people in a second EU referendum. I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. Businesses in the north-east continue to live with uncertainty, none more than the fish processing sector, where particularly concerned about licences for their trucks taking their fresh produce to markets on the continent. Their justified concerns were compounded earlier this week when Michael Gove refused to fight for preference in the queue for lorries with fresh produce. What advice has the cabinet secretary for my constituents? The Scottish Government's Resilience Committee continues to meet, and that is looking at a range of actions, including transport. However, our seafood sector, for example, will be severely impacted by disruption at ports. Therefore, it needs to find alternative transport routes to satisfy customs requirements, which will jeopardise the just-in-time nature of the seafood supply chain that is vital. Businesses in the seafood sector are telling us that the cost of export health certificates and breakdown of supply chains will lead to layoffs and business failure. That is what they are telling us. Although the Scottish Government is doing everything that we can to minimise the risk and mitigate the impact of Brexit, the damage to business and the unavoidable consequence of a no-deal Brexit is incredibly concerning, which is why we should avert Brexit at all costs. When asked on the Andrew Marr programme how much of the £92 million no-deal Brexit fund was allocated to local authorities, Nicola Sturgeon was unable to answer. How much will be made available to cash-strapped councils in light of the fact that money has been allocated to councils in England? Trout of the border in England, local government got reductions to their budgets. In Scotland, they got real-terms growth to local government budgets. What I did not do is separate out funds and ring-fence it or ear-market to local government for Brexit purposes in this chamber, as well as local government tells me not to do that kind of thing. The consequentials from Brexit monies is part of the budget. I explained that at the time of the budget, local government enjoys a real-terms increase and those consequentials are part of that allocation. However, I have not separated it out and said that that is the ring-fence pot for Brexit. It is up to local government as to how it spends the resources. The consequentials were part of the budget and the local government's part of the Scottish budget enjoyed a real-terms increase. That is what I did with the Barnett consequentials and that is how it is helping local government. I ask the Scottish Government how it plans to monitor the number of young people in precarious, temporary and zero-hours work. We take the challenges facing those who are exploited of zero-hours contracts seriously and want to better understand how prevalent they are amongst young people. We will continue to monitor that through the information made available by the Office of National Statistics. We are in an on-going discussion to ensure that information is as robust as possible for young people in Scotland. Iain Gray I can ask the minister once he has that information, will the Government stop counting zero-hours contracts as a positive destination for young people because they are not their exploitation? What I am doing right now is responding in a serious fashion to a serious request by the education committee to see that we can understand better in a serious fashion the prevalence of those contracts in Scotland. Right now, we should be celebrating the fact that we have record levels of positive destinations. I think that that is something that we would welcome. I would love to see it being welcomed by the Labour Party. Once we have that information, we are let out. It is very interesting that the Labour Party continues to focus on the counting of those contracts because what we should really be doing is trying to take them head on and deal them as a challenge in our economy. Of course, they are governed by employment law. Mr Gray was a member of the Smith commission and opposed the devolution of employment law, so we could adequately tackle that challenge. That is the record of Mr Gray that we will get on with delivering for young people in Scotland. 8. Emma Harper To ask the Scottish Government how much of his budget is allocated to the court of the Lord Lion in Scotland and how the finance secretary reached that decision. I know that this is a great interest to the entire chamber. The Scottish Government's judiciary budget provides for the running costs for the court of the Lord Lion, which set it at £100,000 since 2019-20. That has remained consistent since 2012-13. That does not include salary costs for the Lord Lion and the Lion Clerk. The court of the Lord Lion generates its own income, which is off-set against that budget, resulting in the Scottish Government effectively funding the difference between expenditure and income. That budget is monitored through monthly income and expenditure returns provided to the Scottish Government. Emma Harper, please. I have been working on a particularly challenging constituency case involving the Lord Lion, taking one of my constituents through the courts over the Lord Lion's inability to adhere to an agreement that his court made with my constituent. The case is now costing both the Scottish Government and my constituent a great deal of unnecessary money. Can the cabinet secretary therefore outline how the court of the Lord Lion can be held to account by this Parliament and its committees? The Scottish Government has a sponsorship role for the court of the Lord Lion. Scottish ministers are ultimately accountable to the Scottish Parliament for the activities of the court and the use of its resources, but they are not, however, responsible for the day-to-day operational matters. Judicial decisions of the Lord Lion have force of law and may be appealed to the court of session.