 i'r cyfrifodol yng Nghymru? Felly, yn gyfawr, rydw i, y clywed am y dyfodol, rydych yn cyfrifodol i fynd i gael y cyfrifodol i Fyginnol rhagdorff, Sylvia Agnes Bairman, ysgolio ysgolio Ffranc i'r kingdomu ddych yn cyfrifodol. Fywn i, ddim yn y cwestiynau ysgolio, cwestiwn ffwrdd nr 1, Kezia Dugdale. Ieithi ynghylch, y gwir y Prif Weinidog, mae'r cyfrifodol yn cyfrifodol i'r cyfrifodol? the First Minister engagements to take forward the government's programme for Scotland. The people who work in our NHS perform heroics every single day, but they are under pressure like never before. Earlier this week, Dr Martin McKeykne, Scottish Vice-President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said that the NHS in Scotland is suffering from a hospital and medical service crisis. Dr McKeykne said that, and I quote, ond we are doing the damn best we can, but it is awful for patients and families and awful for staff. Does the First Minister think that Dr McKechnie is wrong? The First Minister. I know that this Government listens very carefully to Dr McKechnie. We are taking his advice. He is assisting us with the work that we are doing to try to improve conditions in our accident and emergency departments and in terms of unscheduled care. Generally, of course, Dr McKechnie said what the SNP Government has done to their credit is help us with the number of consultants that has gone from 120 to 190. That was a quote from the daily record earlier this week. When our NHS faces challenges, as it undoubtedly does, the role and the job and the responsibility of this Government, of me as First Minister of the Health Secretary, is to work with our front-line health staff and with health boards to equip them and support them as they face up to those challenges. But waiting times are down significantly under this Government. That is a fact. The NHS is performing now much better against tougher targets and in the face of rising demand than it was when the last Labour Administration left office. For Labour to seek to deny that, it does not do a disservice to this Government. It does an enormous disservice to the thousands of front-line staff who have worked so hard in our NHS to deliver those improvements. We have work still to do, but let us all acknowledge the progress that has been made in our NHS since this Government took office. Kezia Bugdale I have come to this chamber many times now and told the First Minister that she cannot rely on things that Labour did eight years ago as an excuse to get out of the problem that she is in today. If she does not want to listen to me, why should she have a read of Ian McWhorter in Today's Herald, who says that, when politicians blame the previous Administration, you know that there is a problem? When they blame an Administration that left office eight years ago, you suspect there could be a crisis. That is Ian McWhorter, no friend of the Labour Party. We have anewwn NHS at breaking point. The usual SNP solution of sticking a plaster over the wounds won't do. Serious treatment is required. On Tuesday, the SNP Government's own figures showed that Scots are waiting longer for treatment than they were promised by the First Minister, with more than 10,000 people waiting over four months for treatment. Thousands of Scots with a legal right to treatment not getting it in the time they were promised. Secondly, in the world of the First Minister, is the SNP doing a good job of running the NHS. Colin Howey, president of the British Orthopedic Association and a leading surgeon said, we no longer have a short winter bed crisis. Surgical cancellations happened throughout the year because of the lack of facility. It is a bed crisis. Does the First Minister think that Colin Howey is wrong? I will always listen carefully to NHS professionals, but I am quite staggered to listen to a representative of the Labour Party talk about declining acute bed numbers when acute bed numbers declined in every single year of the last Labour administration. Acute medical beds on the other hand have slightly increased over the past year. Can I just say very firmly that it is not seeking to blame anybody to record and to acknowledge the significant progress that our NHS staff have made over the past number of years? Kezia Dugdale mentioned the esteemed journalist Ian McWhorter. Ian McWhorter, on his column this morning, was talking about delayed discharge. We have a challenge in delayed discharge, but let me just illustrate the point that I am making about progress. In October 2006, 908 patients were delayed more than four weeks. In October 2014, the latest stats that we have available was down to 321 patients, down by two thirds. Let's look at something else. The average length of delay was down from 69 days in October 2006 to 30 days in October 2014. Yes, we have work to do, but progress has been made. I repeat to deny that progress is to deny the achievement of our NHS staff. In patient waiting times, our NHS made more than 1.5 million in-patient and day-case treatments in the last year. Yes, of those who are covered by the treatment time guarantee, over the last year, 9,000 waited longer than 12 weeks. That is less than 3 per cent. By contrast, in the last year of the Labour-led administration, if we look at all planned in-patient, diagnostic and day cases, over 129,000 patients waited more than 12 weeks. I will continue to discharge the obligation and the responsibility that my Government has to support the NHS to make progress, but I will not stand here and allow Labour to trash the achievements of our NHS staff. Kezia Dugdale, I was absolutely dire. There was not a word of comfort, a crumb of comfort for a pensioner lying on a trolley in an A&E ward last night. We learned this week that some of the most vulnerable Scots are being let down by the SNP Government. Young Scots with mental health problems are waiting more than six months to get the treatment they so desperately need. Whether you are visiting A&E, waiting to get a hospital bed or planning for an operation, there are problems all across our NHS. Suzanne Hunter, a dedicated nurse from Clackmanager, said that, this winter, the NHS reached breaking point because we simply do not have the resources. Our NHS needs real help now. Does the First Minister, like other nationalists, think that Suzanne Hunter is wrong? No, for the avoidance of doubt, I do not think that any healthcare professional is wrong when they talk about the health service. I think that Labour politicians are wrong when they talk about the health service. Let us look at the issue of resources. All the improvements that I have outlined today that our NHS staff have delivered over the past number of years—there is still work to do, of course—have been possible because of the resources that we are making available to our health service. The health service budget is now over £12 billion for the first time. Next year alone, there will be £383 million more in the health budget than is in the health budget this year. There are nearly 10,000 more people working in our NHS today than was the case when Labour left office. I will continue to discharge the responsibility that I have and my Government have to improve the health service further. I do not stand here and say that there are not challenges in our health service and that there is not more work to be done. I will defend the achievements of our health service staff because those achievements are considerable. I repeat again that our NHS today is performing better against tougher targets in the face of rising demand than it was under Labour. Instead of trying to trash that, I think that we should thank our health service staff for doing it. The First Minister is telling the First Minister that NHS staff do not have the resources that they need to do their job. This week, the First Minister will mark 100 days in office, but she has been at the heart of this Government for over 3,000 days. The SNP might see this as a landmark and a chance for a lap of honour, but what exactly is her record on the NHS? Targets missed, an A and E crisis, fewer beds, thousands of patients waiting months on end for the treatment that they need, dedicated NHS staff, warning of chaos. We have expert staff and patients on one side exposing the crisis in their NHS, and on the other side, we have the SNP Government refusing to take responsibility. With our NHS on life support, when will the First Minister listen to the experts and start to take this crisis seriously? The First Minister Kezia Dugdale does not do a disservice to me or my Government with language like that. She does a disservice to the hard-working men and women in our NHS to every single work hard to treat the vast overwhelming majority of patients within the tougher treatment time guarantees that this Government has introduced. What is the record of this Government on health? It is lower in patient waiting times, it is lower out patient waiting times, it is fewer patients than under the previous Labour Government-delayed discharge patients, much, much more to do but a considerable progress made. When Labour was in office, not only did they not meet their less stringent waiting times, they privatised an entire NHS hospital, which this Government brought back into the NHS. I think that the people of Scotland and the staff of our national health service will choose to continue moving forward with the SNP Government rather than going backwards with Labour. Ruth Davidson To ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Prime Minister. First Minister, no plans at the present time. The Scottish Government is bringing forward fresh plans for land reform and some of those plans we support, but family farmers are telling us that we need to look at much of it again and they are not the only ones. This morning, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveys added its name to the criticism, saying that the current plans ignore what should be the primary purpose of agricultural land, namely producing food. That echoes the same criticism from the National Farmers Union of Scotland, and it comes on top of the Scottish Government's own review group, which warned that the taxpayer could be stung for millions of pounds in compensation when farms are broken up. No, there is a real risk that less food will be produced in Scotland, leading to less food security and the taxpayer stung for compensation in order to make it happen. That is the warning. Can I ask the First Minister why all of those people are wrong? First Minister First Minister, in terms of the agricultural holdings review, when that review was published, it was warmly welcomed across a wide range of different stakeholders. In terms of food policy, I think that the food policy was first introduced by Richard Lochhead as the responsible minister. Of course, food and drink production and exports and the contribution that that makes to our economy is a significant success story. In terms of land reform, Scotland's land makes a huge contribution to our society and to our economy, but the people of Scotland want, I believe, the land to be owned and used for the benefit of the many in Scotland, not the few. I have said on a number of occasions that responsible landowners have nothing to fear from our land reform agenda, but in direct response to the number of quotes that Ruth Davidson has read out, we will continue to enter into and be in a dialogue with all those interested in this area. We will listen, we will respond and we will bring forward legislation and due course that we consider meets the needs of people across Scotland. Ruth Davidson. I am talking about food in our shops, the price of a Scotch beef burger, I am talking about family farms being broken up and taxpayers being stung for millions of pounds in compensation. This is really fundamental stuff and the First Minister should have an answer. I have heard the ideological case for these land reforms, but I have never heard a practical case for them. When you have serious players in the industry telling the Scottish Government that they are pushing through these changes without any thought to food production, then it is clear that this is about dogma rather than about making our countryside work. Let me ask the First Minister this. What actual hard evidence exists, presumably that we have not seen yet, which shows that her plans to make farming in Scotland more productive will give us more food security and will lead to lower prices in the shops for ordinary families. First Minister. What we are proposing is not about breaking up family farms, that is absolute nonsense. One of the big issues that tenant farmers face in Scotland is the ability to get land. People being ideological about this in my view and not for the first time are the Tories. The Tories have stood in the way of land reform. The principles behind our land reform agenda are transparency, diversity, making sure that the land of this country, one of our greatest assets, is used for the benefit of the many, not the few. I think that those are the kinds of principles. The majority of people in Scotland, including those who work our land, would get behind. I think that it is the Tories that are out of step on this agenda, not this Government, and perhaps we will see that more vividly as the legislation passes through Parliament. Question 3, Alice MacKinnon. What the Scottish Government's response is to claim that its officials and Police Scotland sought to influence the content and publication of Kath Murray's PhD research into the use of stop-and-search. The research that was carried out by Kath Murray was co-funded by the Scottish Government. In line with standard practice, the Scottish Government was invited to provide comments on the research and the Government analysts therefore provided factual comments on technical issues. Ms Murray approached Scottish Government officials seeking views on the publication date to avoid scheduling clashes. I understand, though, that the final date of publication was decided by her. Alice MacKinnon. I think that people will be surprised that this is considered standard practice by the Government. Government officials and spin doctors persuaded an academic to delay publication of her damning research on stop-and-search for two days. They then embarked on a frantic round of emails and discussions to create a ministerial event designed to rubbish the report, and they held that in those two days. The emails show that the First Minister's Justice Department is manipulating all of this. Now, Government is a powerful force, but academic freedom is a precious guard against an over mighty state. Scottish ministers and their political advisers oversteck the mark on this. What guarantee can the First Minister give that this behaviour, which she thinks is standard practice, will stop? First Minister. First Lady, on a note, I hope of consensus, I agree with Alice MacKinnon on the importance of academic freedom. Alice MacKinnon, I think, described it as precious. I think that it is sacrosanct, but the kind of exchange of comments, particularly where research is co-funded by the Scottish Government, is standard practice. The comments in this case were technical. Let me read out one of the comments that was made by Scottish Government analysts. Concerns were expressed about the methodological robustness of pulling a main conclusion about the extent of usage when comparing one data set where recording practices are seen as fully recording practice and to one data set where, under recording, is seen as an issue with the data. It is technical issues, and those were the nature of the comments made. Again, I hope that there is a degree of consensus between me and Alice MacKinnon on this. I think that the important substantive issue now is the future of non-statutory stop and search, an exchange that I had just last week with Willie Rennie. That practice is now under review, with a report coming to the Justice Secretary by the end of March. I think that we should all welcome that and look forward to a time when the practices around stop search by the police have the consent and the agreement and the consent of the Scottish people, which is what we should be aiming for. Lord Campbell. It is my understanding that the impact of stop and search on police and community relations was not covered in the research. Whilst I welcome a review of the practice of consensual stop and search, a recent opinion poll suggests that the majority of Scottish voters apparently still support consensual stop and search. Does the First Minister agree that it is important to consider all the appropriate evidence before deciding on the way forward? First Minister. I certainly agree that appropriate consultation must be taken forward by Police Scotland on this practice, and that is why Police Scotland has put into place such a process and agreed to update the Cabinet Secretary for Justice on their findings before the end of March. The short-life working group that has been put in place to review consensual stop and search is meeting this afternoon. It includes a broad range of organisations, and it is important that it considers all the available evidence so that we can move forward on the basis of evidence and agreement. That is something that everybody across the chamber should welcome. Does the First Minister still have confidence in Chief Constable Sir Stephen House, as it has been revealed that Police Scotland data has been lost, wrongly recorded, incorrectly disclosed and now manipulated? First Minister. Yes, I do. I still have full confidence in Chief Constable Sir Stephen House. Stephen House is leading a police force that is helping to ensure that we have low crime levels in this country. I think that we should all get behind and express confidence, not just in the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, but in all the police officers who work so hard, often putting their lives on the line for us on a daily basis. To ask the First Minister what steps the Scottish Government is taking to raise educational attainment among children from deprived communities. Ensuring that every child reaches their full potential, whatever their background is at the heart of our ambition for education. That is why we have launched the Scottish attainment challenge, backed up by £100 million, and why we want to expand free nursery, early learning and childcare to 30 hours a week. Of course, we have also been in discussions with councils on protecting teacher numbers, an issue that we think is vital to school attainment. We have pledged funding of £51 million for councils who maintain teacher numbers. I am very happy to be able to announce to the chamber today that all 32 of Scotland's local authorities have now accepted our offer, and teacher numbers will be protected in 2015-16. I thank the First Minister for that answer. Given the role head teachers have as school leaders in driving up standards and reducing the attainment gap, how will the Scottish Government learn and apply in Scotland the lessons of international good practice, and on what basis will schools be able to directly access the £100 million available through the Scottish attainment challenge fund to ensure improvements in the areas of greatest deprivation and greatest need, so that every child in Scotland has a decent start in life? Well, head teachers do a fantastic job, and we should value highly the contribution that they make. Strong leadership and the best teachers are an absolutely fundamental part of improving attainment and achievement, which is why on Monday I announced that a master's qualification for headship will be introduced this year and will become mandatory for all new head teachers from 2018-19. In our approach, we will continue to be led by lessons from the very best of practice elsewhere. Key education bodies such as Education Scotland, the Scottish College for Educational Leadership and the General Teaching Council for Scotland already play a significant role in seeking out and sharing good practice with practitioners across the country, and we work in partnership with the local authorities initially involved in the Scottish attainment challenge to develop an improvement plan for their particular context, and then to identify the necessary resources that are required to support that plan. Ian Gray We welcome the Scottish attainment challenge, although we would like it to go further, and on sharing best practice it does have, at its heart, attainment advisers in November. The First Minister told Parliament that in the next year, Education Scotland will appoint an attainment adviser in every local authority supporting local action to improve attainment. A good idea if it were true. Yesterday, in a written reply, the cabinet secretary for education told me that there will be 12 attainment advisers and they will be appointed by May 2016. That is 18 months to deliver around a third of this welcome promise. If this is a flagship policy, is it not flagged down to half-mast before it is barely launched? As Ian Gray has just demonstrated, work is under way to meet that commitment to ensure that all local authorities have access to the attainment advisers that will help them to raise attainment. I would have hoped that this was an area where we could have tried to achieve some consensus. I have heard comments from members of the Labour Party that I agree with in terms of the importance of this agenda and some of the practical actions that we have to take to meet this agenda. I know that we are opponents and that we have vigorous and robust debate about the things that we disagree on, but on this, the chances in life for our most vulnerable young people cannot be, for goodness sake, joined together and worked together in achieving it. I am up for that. The test that will be you is Labour. How will the First Minister ensure that the £100 million for attainment will be effective, which we all want, when Audit Scotland states that there is no evaluation of council spend on education and improvements in attainment? We will work to know that because the allocation of the £100 million will follow the improvement plans that we agree with each local authority that is part of the attainment challenge. Built into those improvement plans will be the ways in which we measure progress. It is important that, when we are setting out to tackle attainment and to close the attainment gap, we have ways of assessing what we are doing is working, or if we are doing things that are not working, we can stop doing that and do something else. I do not believe that we should have bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy in our schools, but we should be able to measure progress, and that will be at the heart of the attainment challenge. To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that children and adolescents receive the mental health services that they need as quickly as possible. We have introduced a waiting times target that no-one will wait longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment for access to child and adolescent mental health services. However, where a child or young person is assessed as needing to access a service more urgently, they will be seen more quickly sometimes on the same day. We have invested nearly £17 million since 2009, and we have seen the specialist child and adolescent mental health services workforce increase by 24 per cent also since 2009. Of course, that is within the context of an increase of over 60 per cent in the number of children and young people seen over the past two years. Jenny Marra. The figures released on Tuesday do not reflect those waiting time ambitions whatsoever. In my home health board of NHS Tayside, 42 per cent of children and young people referred to mental health services have to wait over six months to be seen. The Scottish Children's Services Coalition said this week that we are at crisis point and high-level strategic management is required in order to get a grip on this situation. Does the First Minister agree with the Children's Services Coalition? If I can answer the question in terms of Tayside first and then perhaps make some more general comments, in terms of Tayside, there have been very long waits experience, which I think are totally unacceptable. That is why the NHS Tayside in January has recruited nine additional nursing and medical staff. They took up their posts and the CAMHS team is now making an impact on those waiting times. In terms of the general position, as I indicated in my opening answer, we have reduced the maximum wait target of 26 weeks down to 18 weeks. We have introduced a tougher target in order to drive further progress faster. Half of all health boards are currently meeting that new tougher target. There are currently seven health boards, the other half that are not yet meeting the CAMHS waiting times target, but they all have action plans in place. The Minister for Mental Health has this week spoken to all of the board chairs in these seven health boards. We are right to drive progress. We are right to set an even tougher target to make sure that we can accelerate that progress. We are right to have put in the resources and we will continue to do the work to ensure that all young people who need those services get them within the time that they should expect to get them. The First Minister mentioned action plans, but I think that actions would be even better. GPs recently stated that they are not actually referring people to therapies because the therapies are not there to refer to. What are the First Minister's views on that? First, I agree with the member that it is actions that count. That is why we are taking the actions. I think that I would be corrected if I am wrong on that, but I think that we are the only country in the world that has set a target as tough as the one that we have in place. Frankly, the answer that I have just given on NHS Tayside in January recruiting nine additional nurses and medical staff is taking action to continue to improve the position around waiting times. It stands to reason that we need to have the therapies to refer patients to, and that is also part of the actions that health boards are taking. I guess that this goes back to the answer that I gave to Kezia Dugdale earlier on. I will never, ever stand here and say that there is not more work to do in the health service, but what I will not do is allow anybody to deny the progress. It is not that this Government is making, but that hardworking staff across our NHS are making month-in, month-out, week-in, week-out, day-in, day-out. I think that we should all celebrate that and support them to do even more. To ask the First Minister in light of the recent report of three Muslim girls being encouraged to travel to Syria following apparent contact with Aqsa Mammoud. What action can the Scottish Government take to monitor and intercept communications aimed at encouraging Scottish Muslim girls to travel to Syria? I am sure that I speak for everybody in the chamber when I say that my thoughts are with the families of those young women and that I very much hope that they return safely soon. In relation to the specific question, the Interception of Communications is regulated by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. Any interception on the grounds of national security is reserved and is a matter for the security services and the relevant Secretary of State. Graham Simpson, I thank the First Minister for her reply, and of course the personal grief of the families must be unbearable, but parents know how teenage children are almost by definition secretive and rebellious and how difficult it is to cross that line into unnecessary intrusion. That said, what specific assistance and advice has been given to the Muslim communities when their children may be targeted and seduced by terrorist organisations presenting themselves as a glamorous, exciting and just cause? The First Minister About tackling terrorism and violent extremism needs all of us to stand together, and so our approach is a collaborative one, working with communities, partners and organisations. We work closely with a range of organisations developing initiatives aimed at getting messages, support and advice direct to individuals and communities, and that includes distributing advice to parents on protecting young people from online radicalisation. Police Scotland will also offer support to any person or family that raises concerns regarding someone who they might fear may travel to a conflict zone such as Syria or who has already travelled. At this time, the most important message is that, in our wonderful, diverse Scotland, the most important thing that we can all do is pull together and stand together. We are now moving to members' business, so members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.