 I'm pleased with convening the sixth meeting of this session between the convener's group and the First Minister. I'd like to welcome the First Minister to the meeting today. I'd also like to welcome everyone who's come to watch this session. This gives conveners the opportunity to question the First Minister about the programme from government from the perspective of the Parliament's committees. We have up to two hours for today's session and I propose to give each convener around six minutes to ask their questions, that's with the exchange. Given that lots of issues cut across the remits of different committees and we have extra time, other conveners should indicate to me if they would like to ask a supplementary question from their committee's perspective following a particular exchange. I've got about 20 minutes in hand for any supplementaries plus that's the exchange as well as the supplementary. We need to finish around 1.55 pm at the latest as chamber business starts at 2.00 pm, but even then, if we've got time at the end of all that, if there's further questions, I'm quite happy to put them. First Minister, do you wish to make some opening remarks? No, I'm happy just to get into questions. Thank you very much. We've grouped them together, so the first set will be Brexit-related issues and I call Graeme Simpson from the Parliament's DPLR committee to be followed by Joan McAlpine. She's got all the abbreviation, no idea what it is. It's the city or culture tourism, Europe or something else at the committee. There we are. You've got to lead me by the nose in these things. Graeme Simpson, please. Here I am. Afternoon, First Minister. DPLR stands for Delegated Powers and Law Reform. It's in my briefing. Of course, we deal with every piece of legislation that comes through our committee. We're not a political committee. We don't take political views on any of this. It's merely a technical committee. We obviously have a bit of a workload and I've been looking at that. I should say at the outset that thanks has to go to your Minister for Parliamentary Business, Graeme Simpson, for the level of communication that he's brought to the job. It's been very, very useful. I think all conveners would probably agree with that. By my reckoning, according to some correspondence that I've had from Mr Day, we've got 12 Scottish Government bills being introduced this year. Seven of those have still to be introduced and added to that there are 17 bills that are already on the go, so that's on top of all that. That's quite a programme. You've also got the bill that you announced recently, which was the framework bill. That's not on an independence referendum, so that's not included in those figures. I asked you about that in the chamber and whether you thought that introducing that would have a knock-on effect to the other piece of legislation. I'm asking you that again today because your response was basically, you'll manage. No doubt we will manage, but I'm just interested to see if anything's going to give. Thank you very much for your question. I begin by recognising the workload on all committees and particularly on the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee. The standard workload has obviously been added to in recent times from the impact of Brexit and the subordinate legislation that has required to be considered there, so I'll put on record my thanks to the committee for all of that. I'm also pleased to hear that the communication between Graham Day and your committee, and I hope that all committees, is good and positive. In answer to the question about the framework bill, as I said in the chamber, we anticipate introducing the framework bill next in this month, or in May of course. We do not intend for that to displace or delay any other bills. Obviously, in terms of the timing and the sequencing and the day-to-day management of bills, Graham Day will continue to discuss that with committee conveners as appropriate, but it is not our proposal that any other bill has to slip because of that. Are you absolutely confident that that will not be the case, or is it just a wish? I am confident that that is the case, that there is no requirement for any other part of the legislative programme to slip. Often, when I come to this session of conveners, I will hear regularly, often from the Justice Committee in recent years, concerns being expressed about the legislative burden on committees. From time to time, different committees will express concerns that that might have an impact on their non-legislative work. We take all of that into account. I make absolutely no apology for that. We have a very full legislative programme, and all of the pieces of legislation are merited. We do not bring forward legislation for no reason. I am confident of what I have told you. As with any legislative programme, changes happen within the year for a variety of different circumstances. In the last period, that has largely been about Brexit, and we need to make sure that dialogue continues so that committees and the Government have a mutual understanding of each other's needs and priorities and how we collectively manage those. I am absolutely confident in what I have just said to you. Your plan is to launch that this month? As members know, the pre-introduction arrangements that have to be gone through with any bill will always have to be taken into account. However, our plan, as I said in the chamber two weeks ago, is for this bill to be introduced. I said it in the chamber, and I said next month, of course, and we are now in next month, so later in this month. Joe McAlpine, convener of culture tourism, European External Relations. Thank you very much. My committee, First Minister, has recently been taking evidence on the trade agreements that the UK Government has either signed or is seeking to sign in order to replicate deals that Scotland already benefits from through membership of the European Union. These are sometimes called rollover agreements, but my committee is well aware that there is no such legal concept as a rollover agreement and that some of the agreements that the UK Government has signed differ considerably in coverage from the agreements that the EU already has with the UK. My question is, to what extent has the Scottish Government been involved in discussions with the UK Government on the content of those proposed agreements prior to the UK Government formally signing them? That is a very important question and focuses on a particular aspect of Brexit planning. In terms of the context for this, the UK Government is working through a trade agreement continuity programme to use the phrase that you use to rollover trade agreements currently in place between the EU and different countries that the UK will have to take over. If the withdrawal agreement had that passed, it would have seen the EU asking those countries to rollover those agreements, but in the absence of that, the UK is having a number of bilateral discussions. My information is that of the 40 or so agreements that fall into this category, I think nine so far have been signed, so this is an on-going programme of work. To go to the heart of your question, and I'll be as diplomatic as I possibly can be, and as I'm known for, my diplomacy obviously. This is one of many aspects of Brexit planning where the involvement of and dialogue with the Scottish Government, with devolved administrations, generally has been woefully inadequate. As you rightly say, there has always been an understanding that in the process of trying to replicate those agreements, there may be changes to the scope of them or to the detailed content of them, and those changes may very well impact on areas of devolved responsibility. My expectation, both for those agreements and for new trade agreements, if that's where we go in the future, would be that the Scottish Government, and probably more importantly the Scottish Parliament, would have a very formal role in scrutinising, commenting on and influencing the detail of those, and that is something that's not unusual in other countries where there are devolved or federal arrangements. In the experience so far around this, that has not been the reality. The Scottish Government has not been, not had shared with us the draft of those agreements. We have not had the opportunity to comment in detail. The involvement has been, by and large, by the way of updates from the UK Government. Often, these are updates after the event, so they're telling us things that have already happened, as opposed to giving us the opportunity to influence what will happen. It's one of many areas where the experience has been very frustrating. In terms of the job of the Scottish Government and, if I may say so, the job of the Scottish Parliament and its committees to properly scrutinise work that has a big impact on our responsibilities has just not been what we would expect it to be. Thank you very much for that answer. That reflects my committee's experience. In fact, my committee only learned about those agreements when they were passed to us by a House of Lords committee, who had been given them by the UK Government. I believe that the House of Lords committee got them before the Scottish Government did, so clearly there's a problem there. However, if I can go on to ask—the committees are aware that geographical indicators and state aid are areas of disagreement between the Scottish and UK Government with regard to the extent with which those policy areas are devolved or reserved. Given the significant importance of those issues to devolved competencies and Scottish interests more widely, could you provide us with an update on what the progress has been made? What's stated in particular obviously impacts on our ability to have the Government support vital infrastructure projects and Scottish companies, for example? First of all, you're right. There are a number of areas, and you cite two of them, state aid and geographical indicators, where there is not an alignment of view between the Scottish Government and the UK Government as to whether those matters are devolved or reserved. In my view, areas such as that are either clearly devolved or have such an impact on devolved responsibilities that the Scottish Government and Parliament have to have a significant role in determining policy. In terms of the progress of those discussions that are on-going, we haven't reached final, definitive conclusions on all of those matters. There is a frustration that our views on those matters are not being taken as seriously as they should be. Obviously, I wouldn't try to speak for the Welsh Government, but I think that in general terms it would voice the same concern as I am right now. That speaks to a wider and deeper concern that I have about the future, and I voiced that in my statement to Parliament a couple of weeks ago, that over the next period, and for the first time in the 20 years of this institution, there is a risk that we see devolution going into reverse. That's not necessarily a wholesale removal of powers, but an interpretation of the Scotland Act and the reserved devolved split that instead of, and I wouldn't want to say that this has always worked perfectly the way we would have wanted it to in the past, but instead of an approach that has almost presumption that if there is a doubt, then you have a kind of subsidiarity principle at play, then what we will find and what I think we are already starting to detect is a view is to interpret things as tightly as possible in order to say that they are reserved where there is any doubt. That will lead to a creeping centralisation. I think that trade deals in particular, the desire that there will be on the part of the UK Government to impose uniformity, even in areas that are devolved, will fuel that kind of approach. I think that that's a big concern. It's a big concern for Government. I think that it should be a massive concern for the Scottish Parliament. When you couple that of course to what we've already seen, which is a willingness to override the consent of this Parliament, then lots of alarm bells about the future of devolution. Even before we get into debates about greater powers or independence, the future of the current devol settlement should be something that is concerning members of this Parliament. Thank you. Bruce Crawford, convener of finance and constitution, will be followed by Ruth Maguire. Bruce. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Given your opening exchange and your response to Joan McAlpine, First Minister, as you know, the current devolution settlement set out in the Scotland Act 1998 is based on a pretty clear distinction between reserved and non-reserved powers. To what extent do you think that the devolution set out in that Scotland Act actually remains robust enough now, given Brexit, and do there need to be changes here? I think that there need to be substantial and fundamental changes. Not just again, I don't need to look into a crystal ball to answer this. We can draw on our experience of the last couple of years where the devolution settlement that has notwithstanding our differing views on the future of this Parliament, the devolution settlement, if you think about the sole convention, for example, has stood the test of time. Suddenly it doesn't, because on the first real substantive occasion where the Scottish Government and the UK Government's views were opposed, the UK Government just disregarded that convention and rode roughshod over the consent provisions for this Parliament. That is one example. We then had the situation where the withdrawal act, which was passed despite our refusal of consent, contained within it provisions that reduced the competence of the Parliament. A lot of that was played out in the Supreme Court decision on our continuity bill. Then we had instances around the financial arrangements that have with the changes that have come about as a result of the fiscal framework, but nevertheless financial arrangements that have been accepted with the payment to the DUP for the coalition, all of that just suddenly not really counting for anything. That is the experience. As I have just said to Joe McAlpine, I think that all of that should make us very, very wary about the future. If the sole convention, for example, does not mean anything if you have a UK Government that only respects it when it suits it to respect it, the same is true of the financial arrangements that govern the budgetary situation. I think that there is a need for a really fundamental look at all of that. Again, I would stress that I am not talking here about the wider debates about greater powers or independence for this Parliament, but I am talking about how the current settlement works. In my view, before we get into those wider debates, that is absolutely right for reform. First Minister, this morning, we heard from Derek Mackay, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance, that he was minded to consider asking for the assignment of VET to be delayed. That is due in summary to the complexity and volatility of assigning VET based on estimates and not on real out-turn data. He told us that there was a very real risk to the Scottish budget as a result of the complexity and volatility potentially amounting to many millions of pounds. Here is the Brexit-related issue. In any situation of Brexit, he said that he was there considering whether the prospect of full devolution of VET, rather than assignment of VET, might be a better option for going forward. Given that, obviously, the things that the committee can be a bit limited, the First Minister might want to say a bit more about the Scottish Government's position on that. I know that the finance secretary has been discussing this with the committee this morning, and very deliberately, the Scottish Government is thinking very hard and very carefully about this at the moment, and the views of the committee will be very helpful to us in reaching a final conclusion. We want as many powers as possible to lie with this Parliament. On VAT in particular, the current proposal does not devolve any power over VAT to the Scottish Parliament. The decisions around the rates and the levels of VAT will remain reserved. That is simply about assigning a proportion of the revenues from VAT to the Scottish Government budget with consequent reductions in the block grant funding. The concern here comes from the methodology that is being proposed for that. There is never intended to be any real out-turn data that will guide the decision that is based on estimates. While that, in normal times, would give rise to concerns anyway, in a time when there is such instability at the moment, largely because of Brexit, then proceeding on that basis, the Scottish Government's judgment could absolutely result in a significant hit to the Scottish budget, which is why we are being so open with the committee about that risk and what the options then are. I would stress the point that there is no power here for the Scottish Government, so it is not about not taking on a power or postponing a power. It is about a way of calculating the Scottish budget that has enormous risk attached to it, and is it sensible to allow that to be done on the proposed methodology at a time when there is so much volatility in some of the factors that drive that. I do not want Brexit to happen, but some of the opposition to full devolution of power over VAT came from European Union rules around this. If the UK is leaving the European Union, I think that that opens up the discussion as to whether, instead of a VAT assignment, we should have proper devolution of VAT. That is part of the discussion that we may want to have in the period ahead. We are being very open and frank with the committee and with the wider Parliament as a result of our fundamental and quite profound concerns about the implications of the Scottish budget, but we will be listening carefully to the views of the committee as we try to decide what the best way forward is. Ruth Maguire, convener of a quality in human rights, to be followed by Bill Kidd. First Minister, the continuity bill would have retained the charter of fundamental rights post Brexit, with that no longer possible as a consequence of the Supreme Court ruling. Can you tell us what you are doing to ensure human rights protections in Scotland are not just maintained, but they continue to keep pace with the European Union? We are absolutely determined that we will do everything within our power to ensure no erosion of human rights protections as a result of Brexit. The advisory group that we asked to look at the issues for us recommended three principles that we adhere to and sign up to. First is no regression. Secondly, we should try to keep pace with new European developments. Thirdly, Scotland should always seek to be a leader in human rights in terms of the decisions that we take. Those are the principles that will guide what we do. The fact that the EU charter of fundamental rights is not going to be part of domestic law, as things stand at the moment, I think is a matter of real concern. Those are rights that have an impact on each and every one of us. It is a concrete example of a power that we would have had to enshrine that, that has been taken away from this Parliament without our consent. I think that that should add to the concern that we have about it. Obviously, in light of the Supreme Court decision, Mike Russell has had discussions with all parties about the future of the continuity bill, and that has been made clear. However, we will now ask the new national human rights task force, which I announced in December, to consider how we best enshrine the principles and values of the EU charter in Scots law. That will help us to ensure that the importance of the charter is addressed in the new human rights framework that the advisory group has recommended. We remain committed to having that one way or another reflected in Scots law. Could you provide a little more clarification on the task force, on the establishment of it, the structure of it, its membership and any other information that you can share with us? Work is under way just now to establish the task force, which was one of the key recommendations that the advisory group made. We are currently coming to final decisions on structure and membership, and we will be making announcements on that in the near future—fairly near future, I would hope—and we will keep Parliament fully up to date with developments on that as they take place. One of the things that we are very conscious of is that there are a number of recommendations that have been made by your committee that are similar to or overlap with the recommendations of the advisory group. For example, how we monitor our performance against international treaties. It will be important that there is very good dialogue and engagement between the committee and the task force in the fullness of time, so it is important that we make sure that we think through all of those issues properly at this stage. I welcome your views on how human rights can be more clearly articulated throughout the budget process. It is my view that ensuring human rights is embedded at the policy formulation stage is the thing that is important in giving people positive outcomes in their lives. Can you provide an update on the work that is undertaken in this area and how you see human rights interacting with the qualities in the budget and the associated tools? I think that the most important starting point for these discussions is that I am personally very committed to seeing equalities in a human rights approach that is embedded firmly in our policy making and also in our budgetary decisions. If we do not embed it in our budgetary decisions, then we do not achieve what we want to. The outcomes-based approach of the Scottish Government, which is encapsulated in the national performance framework, is key to that. That also underpins the budget process. The equality budget advisory group obviously plays a key role in that, and it has been involved in shaping the budget process now over a number of years and is currently developing mechanisms to integrate human rights analysis alongside equality considerations. The Scottish Human Rights Commission is represented on that advisory group. I know that there was a recent meeting between the advisory group and the commission to explore some of the practical challenges that now need to be addressed. I think that there is a broad agreement around that. I think that the challenge now is to make sure that the practical arrangements support that broad agreement and lead to the outcomes that we want to see. Obviously, the work of your committee is crucial to getting it right. Bill Kidd, convener of standards procedures in public appointments, to be called by Lewis MacDonald. Mr Kidd. I certainly hope so. Are you turned on? Anyway, the SPPA committee will consider the electoral franchise bill when it is introduced. The programme for government states that the bill will include provisions to extend the franchise for Scottish Parliament and local government elections. Maybe this is mostly to do with protecting the franchise for EU citizens. Are you able to elaborate on who you will extend the franchise to and how that will be done? First, we are, as I hope, has been very clear, determined to protect the position of EU citizens and protect the franchise of EU citizens in Scotland just now. In terms of trying to put in simple terms what the electoral franchise bill will do in this regard, right now it is only British, qualifying, commonwealth, Irish and EU citizens resident in Scotland that can vote in Scottish Parliament and local government elections. What we are proposing in the franchise bill for devolved elections, which is all we have the power to legislate for, is that the franchise should be open to everyone who is legally resident in Scotland, regardless of what country they come from. That will certainly help to protect the franchise and the right to vote for EU citizens, but we will broaden that to some extent. It will mean that citizens of all countries, if they are legally resident in Scotland, will be able to vote in Scottish Parliament and local government elections, and they will be able to register to vote in the usual way. Thank you very much for that, First Minister. When, well we don't know what's going to happen obviously with the Brexit situation, as it stands, because it seems to change day to day, but will we look to ensure comfort for those citizens who live here in Scotland, who originate from EU countries, will we be able to provide more comfort for them, do you hope, once Brexit has been completed, in order that we can ensure that the franchise is as wide and legitimate as possible? I think that we can give that comfort now in terms of devolved elections, which is what we are seeking to do through the franchise bill. It's not the only thing that we're doing through the franchise bill, but it is a part of that. In terms of elections that remain the responsibility of the UK Government, then we are not in direct control of that, but I would certainly hope that they would take similar action. More generally, I still think that the way in which EU citizens are being treated is appalling. One of the Scottish Government was one of many different groups that argued for the fee for settled status to be dropped—I'm glad that that was—but for EU citizens, many of whom have seen Scotland and the UK as their home for many, many years, to be forced to go through any kind of bureaucratic process is a really retrograde step. All of that is compounded by the fact that it is not just a good thing in principle, I think that it's a good thing that we attract people from other countries to come and live here, as well as encourage Scottish people, particularly young people, to experience Europe and the world. Scotland has a really driving imperative to continue to attract people to come here because of our own demographics and the recent population statistics that were published just in, what, last week or the week before, underline that. I think that that is a matter of regret for principal reasons but also for practical reasons as well. I think that that gives a lot of comfort. Thank you very much, First Minister. I think that the next two questions are budget-related from the conveners. It's Lewis MacDonald, the convener of health and sport. We follow by Margaret Mitchell. Mr MacDonald. Thank you very much, First Minister. The Government published the medium-term health and social care financial framework a few months ago, setting out the financial picture across Scotland and indicating looking towards 2024 that there would be a need to shift or save £1.7 billion over that period within the budget. Now, the health and sport committee and its pre-budget report for the current year raised the question of how that would apply at health board level. The Government's response was that work was being done with health boards to look at medium and longer-term financial planning for both individual boards and on a regional level. I wonder if you can tell us what progress has been made with that work and whether those regional and local medium-term financial plans will be made public. First, as everybody knows, the medium-term financial plan for the NHS is in the context of rising health budgets. We made a commitment to increase the health budget by £2 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament, and we have seen increased year-on-year health spending now at record levels. That is right, none of which is to say that life is easy for those managing budgets in the health service. It is not. The savings targets are about greater efficiency in our health service. They are also about spending money better. The integration of health and social care as an example is about delivering better care, but it is also about using health resources better. The work is on-going with health boards. Obviously, Jean Freeman has announced the change to how we deal with health boards in terms of annual budgeting, the three-year budget planning and the variance that they are allowed to carry forward, which gives health boards a lot more flexibility. In terms of your question about being made public, we have given a commitment to be transparent around all that. I know that your committee is now giving much more regular, if not quite real time, more real time information about the spend of health boards against budgeted estimates. We will be very happy and keen to share that information with the health committee and Parliament more widely. The brokerage system is, in other words, Government loans to health boards, which are unable to balance their books year by year. The latest figure, I think, suggests £70 million brokerage for the financial year 2018-19. That was from the end of February. I wonder if it is possible yet to say what the final tally of brokerage for the last financial year will be and also whether the Government is confident that those boards, which have received brokerage in that year, will be able to balance their books over the three years, as is now required? I will check whether that figure is yet available. If it is, I will make sure that you get it. It may be that it is not yet available just in terms of the end of year processes around that. We know that, in 2018-19, four NHS boards required brokerage in NHS Ayrshire and Allent, Arran, Borders, Highland and Tayside. We would expect health boards to manage their budget within that three-year cycle and to utilise the financial flexibility of a 1 per cent under their overspend, which provided that they deliver overall break-even by 2022. A couple of boards have already indicated plans to use that flexibility in the current financial year 2020. Obviously, we will continue to work closely with health boards on an on-going basis about their financial planning and their performance against financial planning. In some ways, brokerage is seen as a negative. I can understand why that is the case. We had brokerage for certain health boards when I was health secretary. I see it in some respects as a positive in the relationship that we have in Scotland between health boards and Governments, where we seek to manage and to help health boards to manage their finances so that there is no impact on patient care. Although the new arrangements put that on a slightly different footing, I think that that close dialogue and relationship will continue to be important. Thank you very much. On integration authorities, I think that we still await the final budget plans for each of our integration authorities for the coming financial year. Again, first minister, I wonder if you are able to indicate whether that has now been complete and whether that information can now be made public. That information will be made public as soon as it can be. Obviously, with integration, we are continuing to step up efforts to ensure that the aims of integration, which I think everybody supports, are properly translated into the positive changes that communities and patients need to see. The ministerial strategic group for health and community care has been instrumental in helping to guide that process, and they published their final report in February. Integration authorities are collectively responsible for managing almost £9 billion, so that is an increasingly important part of the overall budgeting in our health service. Transparency and understanding of your committee and Parliament generally around that is as important as for the whole health budget. First minister, the Justice Committee's stage 1 reports on the Domestic Abuse Scotland Bill and the Management of Offenders Bill unanimously agreed that there was the need for those bills to be implemented effectively and with appropriate resources. The former Cabinet Secretary for Justice then agreed to look at the financial support necessary to ensure that domestic abuse, coercive and controlling behaviour legislation is effectively resourced and implemented. The current Cabinet Secretary acknowledged that the roll-out of HDC and the management of offenders bill would not work without the necessary resources. Despite that, the Scottish Government's 2019-20 budget agreed a real-terms cut in the budget for grammar justice social work, made a real-terms cut in the funding for electronic monitoring and cut the budget for intensive support packages by 50 per cent. Does the First Minister accept her Government's decision not to back policies with necessary resources, not only undermines the policy objectives of important bills but, more worryingly still, seriously undermines the Parliament scrutiny process? I do not accept that. Those are always on-going discussions with committees and also with the different agencies that will be involved in relation to any particular bill. If you take the Domestic Abuse Bill, for example, a flagship piece of legislation that I think everybody across the Parliament is proud of, resources were made available in terms of the awareness and the training around that. I, with Humza Yousaf, visited Women's Aid in the East End of Glasgow just before that took effect to see for myself the work that Scottish Women's Aid were leading there around that. It is important. We want to see all bills implemented effectively and it's important. Every bill comes with a financial memorandum. There is a lot of scrutiny that committees put into financial memorandums. As we go through our budgetary process year in and year out, we keep those things under review in terms of management of offenders. I think that in terms of some of the performance around that, there is a lot to suggest that we are making strides in the right direction in terms of prevention and trying to use community sentences, trying to keep people offenders out of prison where that is appropriate, unless they need to be in prison. As we see a prison population that remains very high, there is a need to continue to do that to make sure that we are spending resource there. We will look to make those decisions. I don't need to tell anybody around this table that budgetary decisions year on year are incredibly difficult. We work very hard to protect the budgets that Parliament collectively thinks are important. The reason we have taken some of the tax decisions that I know have been not supported by everybody across the Parliament has been to protect the budgets that are important. That is what we will continue to do. We are in this training as one thing, but it is fundamental to the implementation of both those bills that criminal justice social work is adequately resourced. Perhaps if I could turn to the lack of capital funding available to the police, which means that ageing policing vehicles are not being replaced and the state is not being properly maintained, that has been well documented with some press coverage ridiculing the situation. What does the First Minister intend to do to rectify the situation and ensure that the police have the necessary resources that they require and deserve to have to enforce the law and protect the public? In the budget for this financial year, the Scottish Police Authority capital budget was increased by 52 per cent. That is the first thing that we are doing is increasing the budget that the police have available to them. That increases to support further improvements to police ICT, including improved mobile technology. Since 2015, Police Scotland has invested over £21 million of capital investment in its estate and £28 million of revenue spend on planned maintenance and repair. Police Scotland is very clear that its fleet maintenance team does a very good job. Over 96 per cent of its fleet is on the road. We will continue to work closely with the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland to look at its future capital requirements. I think that there are not many budgets that I would hazard a guess without every budget line in front of me right now that went up by 52 per cent in this year. That is a recognition of the need to ensure that we are investing in the capital requirements of the police, as well as protecting the revenue budget, which we have made a commitment to do for the entirety of this Parliament, which will deliver £100 million extra in revenue funding for the police over the period of 2021. Those are not political sessions, so I am not trying to get political here. There was a call made by your party for us to not take certain tax decisions, which would have removed £600 million or so from the Scottish budget. Those are difficult decisions, and what I have said to you just now shows that we are putting money where we consider the priorities lie. Unfortunately, the response that you have just given seems to suggest what crisis SPF, on a daily basis, is saying that it does not have the resources. The police vehicles are not up to scratch and they are having to close some of the state. Will she reconsider her response to me? I think that what I have just said is that we have substantially increased the capital budget of the police, and we will continue to discuss with the police their capital requirements. We have a budget that is not infinite. We have to make budgetary decisions. We have to make very difficult budgetary decisions because of the overall climate and the pressures on our budget that we know where they emanate from. We make those decisions and we stand by those decisions. We discuss with the police service, with the health service, with local authorities where the balance of those decisions lies. With the police in particular, if the UK Government was to refund £125 million paid by the police in VAT between 2013 and 2018, which they have not agreed to refund, they would have more money at their disposal, so maybe that is something that you can join us in asking them to do. Only if the money is allocated to them, First Minister— We can deal with you just now. I will agree to give all of the money to the police if you persuade the Tory Government and Westminster to give us the money. I have to move on. I am supposed to be chairing this. Sometimes I am, sometimes I am not. Anyway, can we call convener Clare Adamson of Education and Skills to be followed by Bob Doris? The Government has made its commitment to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child very specifically and has said that it wants that to be embedded into civic life and legislation in Scotland. One of the areas of concern for the Education and Skills Committee has been the experience of young people with additional support needs in our schools. We have taken sometimes quite harrowing, sometimes disturbing evidence for those families that the system at the moment seems to have failed or been problematic in some way. I would like to ask you what difference will that rights-based approach to education make for those young people? I think that having the incorporation of the UN convention will publish a consultation on exactly how we go about incorporation shortly. Our plan is for that legislation to be passed within this session of Parliament. I think that there is very broad-based support for that. It is very complex because it ranges across almost all areas of responsibility. There are complexities around the devolved and reserved split of responsibilities, so I am not underestimating the complexity of that, but it is important. In terms of the impact of that, one of the things that I think is really important is that we see it as a way of making positive change where it is required. It will have failed and anything like that fails if all it does is result in court cases taking failure into the court process. It is a real catalyst opportunity to drive change across the whole area of our responsibilities. In terms of additional support for learning, with any group in society that is more vulnerable than the population generally, a rights-based approach is particularly important. As you know, given your committee's work, we have already carried out substantial work around additional support for learning. In March, we published the package of support for schools and local authorities to support continued implementation of ASL, new guidance. Research was also published gathering the views of children and parents about their own experiences and that has been complemented by an Education Scotland training resource. All that work is important. The Education Secretary is also committed to a review of the implementation of additional support for learning, including where children learn, because we want children to learn where most suits their needs and circumstances. I absolutely agree with you, First Minister, that the last thing that we want to see is a series of court cases. However, we did take some evidence. Professor Shula Riddle from the University of Edinburgh stated that 35 per cent in some local authorities in Scotland are being identified as having the statutory co-ordinated support plan, which is less than 0.3 per cent of the total school population. In less, quote from her, in less, parents and children have a statutory support plan. They have no means of challenging local authority provision or of making use of tribunal in many cases. At the same session that was made on the smear of the first-year tribunal said that some of the most successful cases at tribunal had been taken with the advocacy support that was provided by the Scottish Government. Obviously, while we want an improving situation, how do you see the education of parents and carers and young people and the use of advocacy moving forward to ensure that people are aware of their rights and how to exercise their rights? I am a huge and this is based on my experience, as we will all have experiences in my constituency caseload, as well as my experience as health secretary. I am a huge and very committed supporter of advocacy and the power of advocacy for those who often can't make their voice heard without that. I certainly would not sit here and say that we get that right in all areas of policy where that is appropriate and that we need to continue to look at how we better support advocacy. What you have described in terms of some of the evidence that came to your committee underlines the importance of having a rights-based approach. You do not want people to have to rely on enforcing those rights but often it is having that approach in place that drives the improvements. Having the ability to enforce rights is always a safety net that people should have. One of the just very briefly final comment is what I do not want to give any impression of is that we think that the incorporation of the UN convention on the rights of the child suddenly is this sort of magic solution and everybody does not have to do anything. Those are on-going processes of work that we have to continue to prioritise along the way while we are doing the work around incorporation. Bob Doris, convener of social security, followed by Gordon Lindhurst. First Minister, the Scottish Government will take on executive competence for all benefits being devolved to this place on 1 April 2020. I would like to specifically ask about disability assistance. Cabinet Secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville has pledged that no one will be subject to a DWP face-to-face reassessment for disability benefits from early 2021 when the Scottish Government launches new claims for our PIP replacement. That requires the DWP to identify Scottish PIP claimants approaching a PIP reassessment to securely and timidly transfer them to a new social security Scotland system. First Minister, how confident are you that we are on track to achieve this and that any face-to-face assessment will be a Scottish disability assistance assessment as opposed to a UKIP reassessment? Let me just reiterate the commitment that Shirley-Anne Somerville has already given. It is our intention that from that period in 2021, when we take responsibility for new claimants, no individual who is already on the benefit coming up for a review or reassessment will have to undergo the assessment under the current arrangements. Obviously, as with all aspects of the devolution of welfare benefits, we are having to work very closely with DWP. We are, in many aspects of this, dependent on the DWP doing certain things, and that has been the case throughout. We are not taking a system on a wholesale basis and devolving it to Scotland. We are unpicking lots of the DWP's existing systems, and that does make it more complicated. Generally, although there will be frustrations and disagreements from time to time, we have a good working relationship, and we are determined to ensure that the commitment that is being given will be delivered. One of the key aims of the new disability assistance assessments here in Scotland is to ensure that disabled people are not needlessly being called to face-to-face assessments for the clear information that is available to a positive determination to be made without that having to take place. What information can you provide to suggest that that ambition will be realised? How many Scottish working-age disability assistance claimants will you anticipate me no longer be called to needlessly face-to-face assessments or assessments? I am not sure that I have the precise figure for you, but I can get that for you. We do not want people to have to undergo face-to-face assessments where they do not need to. We also do not want people to have to be assessed by private companies. Those assessments will be in-house assessments by the Social Security Agency in Scotland. We are undertaking a huge amount of work just now to make sure that we can meet the timetable that we have set and for the processes for assessments to be ready in time for delivery. The cabinet secretary will make an announcement later this week tomorrow. In fact, I think that a contract to support the design of assessments for the new system has been awarded. That will look at the design of the assessment centre network across Scotland and look at, including working closely with users, to look at what major improvements on the current system are necessary. Once the Scottish system is up and running, those assessments will be carried out by Social Security Scotland and fully supported by public sector health professionals. It will give people a lot more choice and flexibility over their assessments, including the times and locations that suit them and the options of home visits for people if they need them as well. We have made a lot of progress already in identifying improvements so that we have what we describe as a people-centred service and we want to make sure that that work continues so that we deliver on the commitments that we are making. Finally, First Minister, the majority of our Social Security Committee called on the UK Government to reverse changes to pension credit that would see mixed-age couples lose out to the tune of around £7,000 a year. The committee also unanimously agreed to urge the UK Government to at least delay those changes by six months, given that 40 per cent failed to claim their pension credit in the first place. How can the Scottish Government ensure that benefit uptake improves even if you don't have the powers to reverse those cuts? First Minister, on the pension credit change, we are concerned about that as well. We have written to the UK Government outlining our opposition to it. We asked to see the impact assessment that the DWP had carried out in the policy and were told by the minister responsible that there was no impact assessment. The DWP had just published some ad hoc statistics. All those statistics showed that a lot of people will be potentially affected to the tune of, in some cases, £7,000. That is not a new thing in terms of benefits that we are not responsible for. We work hard often with other agencies, such as Advice, for example, to encourage people to apply for and take up their entitlement to benefits. I think that that becomes all the more important as changes like that are made. First Minister, you will be aware that, in the committee, we have been looking at the BiFab situation. In the programme for government, it states that the Scottish Government will work to ensure that businesses reap the onshore benefits of offshore generation. In the committee, we heard from the unions in BiFab that, no matter how competitive Scottish-based companies are in their bids for offshore renewable work, they will not win contracts if they are being undercut by loss-making state-owned companies in other parts of Europe or the world. First Minister, do you agree with that first of all? If so, what does the Scottish Government intend to do about that? First Minister, I strongly share the concern that unions have expressed. I have been frank about that in the chamber in recent times. We are not doing as well as we should be doing, or as well as we want to do, in terms of winning the supply chain benefits from these major offshore, or not just offshore, major renewable projects, many of which are offshore. We, as you probably know, convened a summit just last Thursday involving the unions, the UK Government and industry to look at what more we can do. I am summarising here, and I do not want to oversimplify, but there are two main concerns. One is the one that you have cited, where companies such as DF Barnes, who own BiFab now, will be very clear on that, that they think that there are foreign yards that are making bids at costs that are below value, that they could not possibly be profitable in any way, which gives rise to the concern that there is some hidden subsidy there from Governments in other countries. We have had discussions with the UK Government about how we can get underneath that and try to understand that better, so that if there are concerns there that need to be raised with the EU commission, for example, we can do that. That is on-going. The second concern is, can we do more? Here there will be questions both for the UK Government and for the Scottish Government. The UK Government, in their contract for difference work, for us in terms of licensing, Crown Estate arrangements, can we do more to mandate Scottish or UK content in supply chain? We are looking at all of those things just now. I know that there was a fairly positive feedback to those who had been at the summit last week, and we are working very hard on both of those elements to try to make sure that we are, in an open and competitive way, winning as much of that work for Scottish companies such as BiFab. On the point of what can be done, one of the things that we heard was about the BiFab yard in Mithl, which is leased to the company from Scottish Enterprise, the Scottish Government is willing to put in investment to make that yard a world-leading facility to ensure that Scotland's port-and-yard infrastructure is the best that it can be. First Minister, not that long ago I met with DF Barnes, as I have previously, and those were all issues that we discussed on an on-going basis with the owners of BiFab. Scottish Government, of course, is a shareholder in BiFab, not that we do not involve ourselves in the operational decisions of the company, but because of the support that we have already given to save BiFab from going into administration and then to support the buy-out by the new company, we have obviously a financial interest on behalf of the taxpayer there. Those are things that we will discuss. I do not want to put words into anybody else's mouth. If DF Barnes was sitting here, they may say something different. I do not think that the issues with investment at the yard were the key issues of concern in terms of the recent contracts where they have not been successful, although there are clearly views and the unions have expressed those views as well about the need for investment in Mithl. We will continue to look at the Scottish Government's role in that, although, as I say, we have already made available significant financial support so far. I might just briefly ask about one other matter, which I think I asked you about last time we were together with the conveners in this format. I asked you regarding the Government's plans for the publicly owned energy company, which the programme for government indicates would be delivered by 2021. We are now into May and, as I understand it, there is no published business plan, although the policy was announced more than 18 months ago. There still appears to be little detail as to how the publicly owned energy company will operate, or by whom. Are you able to tell us if you have seen a draft of the business plan and when it will be made public and perhaps what your latest thinking on this particular policy is? In terms of the work that is on-going, we published the independent strategic outline case previously, which your committee looked at in detail. The work to develop the outline business case is on-going and not yet complete. I have not seen the final version of that yet. It will assess the detailed options for the company. We have already had two engagement events to take input from key stakeholders. In terms of the timing, our plan is that the outline business case will be published in time to support a public consultation on that in 2019. However, as those timescales get firmed up, I will make sure that your committee is advised of that. Minister, following your recent declaration of a climate emergency, an adoption of the Committee on Climate Change's recommended target of net zero emissions by 2045, can you set out how the Scottish Government intends to deliver a climate change plan within six months of royal assent, as recommended by my committee? It was recommended by your committee and I confirmed in the chamber last week that we will abide by that recommendation. It is our plan to publish an updated climate change plan within six months of royal assent. In terms of how we will go about that, there is a lot of work involved in that with a lot of resource implications. I have made very clear publicly, I have made very clear within the organisation of the Scottish Government that this is a priority piece of work for us. We will do, over the summer, some public engagement to help inform the updating of the plan, looking to take views from the public communities businesses industry more generally about what in Scotland we need to do to deliver the policies that allow us to meet the increased scale of ambition that we set out in response to the Committee on Climate Change last week. I said in the chamber at First Minister's questions last week that that will involve us looking across the whole range of our responsibilities. We took the difficult decision yesterday on the air discount tax for all the positive reasons that can be, and we have made for that policy in terms of that increased ambition. It is now not in alignment with that, and there will be difficult decisions not just for the Scottish Government but for all Governments. I think that it is important that we do that openly and frankly, and Governments not just here but elsewhere will only succeed in this if we involve the public very, very centrally in that, because that involves not just changes of government policy, it will involve behaviour change on the part of every individual business and organisation the length and breadth of the country. As you said, climate change and tackling it cuts across pretty much all of Government portfolios. What will you do to ensure that each Cabinet Secretary, Minister of Government and Department takes ownership of climate change in the context of your own portfolios? First Minister, we are very firm and I think all Governments have to take this view that while we have got a Cabinet Secretary for the Environment and Climate Change, it is not just her responsibility because this does impact across every area of responsibility. Formally within the Scottish Government that is, you know, that sort of cross cutting work is brought together in the Cabinet subcommittee on climate change, which was established specifically to ensure that we have that cross cutting approach, but regularly, you know, these are issues that we discuss in Cabinet as a whole. And I think it's fair to say that every Cabinet Secretary understands the impact, often understands the very difficult impact that that will have for their area of work. And while we can always, across all of these cross cutting areas of policy, I think we, like Governments everywhere, can get better at the joined up bit of this, I think that the Scottish Government already does very well in understanding that this is a cross Government challenge. It's not just a cross portfolio challenge as well. It's also collaboration and co-operation between Governments in these islands as well. The UK Government, of course, haven't yet made an announcement on what their view is of the Committee on Climate Change's targets that they've been set. How does that impact, how might their decisions impact on our ability to tackle our ambition? First Minister. The Committee on Climate Change report last week is explicit on this, and for anybody with an interest it would be worth reading this, because it is very clear that our ability to meet our targets, while a lot of that lies within our own powers and our own responsibilities, we will not be able to do everything we need to do without the UK Government also setting or agreeing to the target that is recommended for them, which is a slightly slower move to net zero than recommended for Scotland. So I really, Roseanna Cunningham is, or I think she probably already has, now written to the UK Government Minister asking for a meeting to discuss this. I hope we see the UK Government committing to this target of net zero in their case by 2050, as soon as possible, but also committing to the specific things that the Committee on Climate Change said that they had to do in order to deliver on their target and allow us to deliver on ours. There were three things that they specifically mentioned first on carbon capture, which the UK Government have completely failed to get any momentum behind. They must up their game on carbon capture. Secondly, the Committee on Climate Change said that they had to bring forward their target date for electric and low-carbon vehicles. Their target date right now is 2040 hours, is 2032 hours, and they need to be more ambitious around that. The third area was in the decarbonisation of the gas grid, which stands to reason that the Scottish Government cannot do on its own unilaterally. Those are the areas where we need to see real UK Government action. A good starting point would be for them to do what we have done and say that they accept the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change. I call Jenny Marra, a convener of Public Audit Post-Legislation, scrutated by Edward Mountain. Good afternoon, First Minister. As you will know, the Audit Committee's job is to follow the public pound, but the Committee has become increasingly concerned over the last year or so about the lack of data that is collected by the Scottish Government, so much so that the Government is making decisions on expenditure of millions of pounds without basic data that informs those decisions. As you know better than anyone, we need good data to plan where money should be spent, where savings can be made and, crucially, to determine if policies are making a difference. I know that you will have been as concerned as I was, and our Committee was when we took evidence from the Auditor General on children's mental health just a few months ago. She found that the Scottish Government did not know the total amount of money that we are spending on children's mental health. The Government does not hold data on the reasons for children's referrals to CAMHS being rejected, which is an issue of concern to all parliamentarians. Crucially, your Government does not have any data on how many children get better on what the outcomes of your policy are. Clearly, Dame Denise Coya's work on children's mental health is very important, but the Auditor General's report identified those information gaps at Government level, and she also has the same concerns about the lack of data informing your policy on early learning and childcare and on self-directed support. This Parliament is moving to a new budget process based on outcomes that work has been very ably led by Bruce Crawford, but how can we properly do that job when the Scottish Government does not collect basic data that allows you and us to make good policy decisions for our citizens? First Minister, I genuinely think that it is a really important area. I do not think that it is fair to say that the Scottish Government does not collect data. We collect acres of data. Some people will say that we put too many burdens on people in the public sector to collect data that takes away from their ability to do their front-line job. I think that what is really important is that we collect the right data, the data that both informs the development of policy and then the performance against policy. Where there are gaps in data, we take action to fill those gaps. I think that the work of the Audit Committee and the work of the Auditor General is important. If you take mental health, for example, the comments that you have already cited, we have already asked NHS boards to start providing ISD information services division, who published the key waiting times statistics with more detailed information on patients who are waiting or receiving treatment through CAMHS services, for example. We will work actively to make sure that we have good data, that it is the right data and that it is informing the judgments that are required to be made. That is often not something that is set in stone over time. There will be often requirements for us to change the kind of data sets that we are looking at and to make sure that we are keeping that up-to-date. I will not sit here and say that there is never any gaps in data or areas where we need to gather better data, and we will be committed to doing that when we need to. Jenny Marra. I thank you for your answer, First Minister. I think that you are saying that we can always do better on those things, but I think that the reports that have come in front of the Audit Committee, the Auditor General, has been quite clear that the data is inadequate for the policy decisions that you are taking and for the amount of money that you are spending as a result of those decisions. Let me, on the early learning and childcare, the Auditor General set out that the Government did not set out how it would evaluate success of that policy. There was no economic modelling done by the Government. There was no information on the expansion in childcare policies, likely economic impact. The Auditor General herself concluded that there is no evidence, none at all, that additional investment has improved the quality of early learning and childcare services. That policy was a significant investment for your Government. In your answer to me, you said that we can always do better on data. I agree, and you can always tinker and collect better data, but the data that has been collected on children's mental health is different in every health board. It is not shared across health boards, and this is not anything new, so why has not progress been made on this? I would ask you as well, would you consider a Government's data strategy on new policy and outcomes? On the last point, I am happy to consider any proposal that comes forward, so I will take that away and perhaps your committee, or your chair of committee, wants to get into a bit of engagement about exactly what you would want to see in that kind of strategy. You have mentioned both CAMHS and Early Years, and now I do not have the Auditor General's report on Early Years in front of me, although I have read it when it was published. Some of what she said was about what she would have considered data or economic modelling to inform a decision to agree a particular policy. We decided, as a Government, that we had that in a manifesto in an election that we wanted to significantly increase the state-funded element of childcare for the benefits that we believe that brings to young people. I think that political parties and Governments are entitled to do that. In terms of the governance of Early Years, of the implementation of this now, there is a very robust governance programme around the implementation of that, which Mary Todd talks about regularly. We are absolutely of the view that we need to have, and it will be different in different policy areas, the data and the evidence that allows us to assess policies that we invest large amounts of money in. In terms of CAMHS, when the Auditor General publishes his report, we accept the recommendations, we work to put in place what she calls for. There is a situation where health boards are not collecting consistent data on CAMHS, which is why we are now working with health boards to make sure that the data that ISD is gathering is consistent and detailed enough for the judgments around performance to be made. There will often be debates and tensions in this debate. As I am sure you do, I speak to front-line professionals in the health service or in other parts of the public sector who will tell me that they feel overburdened by the need to collect data. We have to get that balance right. Often, as well as closing data gaps and gathering the right data, we need to look at a regathering data that we do not need that is not particularly helpful. In some respects, you chair the Audit Committee, I am sure that you feel that this sometimes as well, the amount of data that comes across my desk on a weekly basis, on a daily basis, is enormous. There is no lack of data out there. I am not saying that in particular issues, in particular policy areas, there is not, but generally there is no lack of data that we gather. We need to, on an on-going basis, be looking at whether we are gathering the right data and whether there are gaps or inconsistencies in how we do that. There is a willingness to work with your committee as well as with Audit Scotland in doing that. What was good to say to Jenny is that I am good to go on, but I have time at the end for everybody to come back in. There is plenty of time, so I just want to give everybody their space at the beginning. I am calling Edward Mountain. Can we enrule economy and connectivity to be followed by James Dornan? I have just found you, Mr Mountain. Thank you very much and good afternoon First Minister. You have always been clear that, throughout this Parliament, it is your intention to make sure that all properties across Scotland get superfast broadband by the end of this Parliament. Some of your ministers are rowing back on that, suggesting that it will not be well in till and well into the next Parliament. Could you just confirm to me that it is still the intention to deliver broadband by the end of this Parliament? That is the commitment that we have made. That is what we are working on. We are in the midst of a procurement process right now, and we hope to intend to conclude that procurement process later this year. Obviously, the detail of roll-out and the timescales attached to that can only be set out with real clarity and definition when we have the conclusion of that procurement process. However, the commitment that we have made is very clear Scotland's performance. I should, just as an aside, say that this is, strictly speaking, a reserved matter, but we are investing in the R100 project. First Minister, you will get back in plenty of time. In the R100 project, this is an investment of £600 million, so we are absolutely committed to getting next-generation superfast broadband to 100 per cent of residential and business premises. If you look at the latest broadband statistics, 93.5 per cent of premises already have superfast broadband in Scotland, which is already up from under 60 per cent in 2014. There is a lot of work and progress, but that job is not finished until we get to that 100 per cent target. First Minister, I think that the procurement process was supposed to be completed in February this year. The contracts were then going to be announced later in April. Now, we have heard that they might not be announced until after the summer. When they are announced, and if you could let me know when they will be announced, will it include when the delivery time of those contracts will be made available to the public? First Minister, that would be my expectation. This is a complex project. The reason why it is costing £600 million to complete the final bit of the journey is that, as well as I do, the geography and topography of our countries is very complex. We want to have a robust procurement process, so we get maximum value for taxpayers' money. That is why we will take the time that needs to be taken to make sure that we are getting that robustness. Again, it is entirely within your right to do, so you roll your eyes at me when I talked about the reserve devolved split. That is a commitment that is way beyond any other part of the UK. When we deliver that, as we will deliver it, Scotland will have superfast broadband access that is way in excess of any other part of the UK, and it is worth making sure, given the importance of it to people in every corner of the country and the scale of investment, that we get it right. I think that I only roll my eyes because I do not think that your ambition lacks ambition. I totally support what you are trying to do. What I am trying to do is to understand from the committee's point of view whether it will be delivered on time. As a final question, there will be some people in the R100 project who do not get fibre to their house or terrestrial connection to their house. There is a real concern out there, and we have had no confirmation from the committee that those people will be given the same offering of broadband by satellite or microwave to their houses that the people on terrestrial lines will be given. Can you give an assurance that those people will not be left behind, because I think that that is really important for the committee to know that and for the people to know that? Yes. Our commitment is 100 per cent superfast access. You are absolutely right for a small number, although it does not matter how many for those individuals that will be important. That will not necessarily be fibre to the premise. That is one of the things that we are looking at, is what the options are. This is an area, as you know as well as I do, where technology is advancing all the time, what the options are for that small number of people who will require different solutions. However, our absolute commitment is 100 per cent superfast, 30 megabits per second compared with the more partial commitment of the rest of the UK, which is 10 megabits per second. I take your point and your assurance that you are fully behind the ambition of that, and I think that that is very welcome. It is complex, it is difficult, but we are absolutely determined to do it. I am sure that your committee will scrutinise every step of the way. I am not trying to dodge your question. We are in the middle of a procurement process right now, and some of the questions that you are asking me here flow from the conclusion of that procurement process, but all of the detail of that will be available for your committee to scrutinise as we go through this process. I now call James Dornan, convener of local government. The community is to be followed by Joanne Lamont, who has been very patient. Mr Dornan, you are very like you, Ms Lamont. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Good afternoon, First Minister. I wonder if you could give us some information around the timing of the local governance review and also an update on what you are finding are the key challenges emerging from the consultation phase. First Minister, the first phase of the engagement as part of the review concluded, I think just before Christmas last year, there were 4,000 people took part in that 40 public sector partners also submitted proposals for alternative governance arrangements. There was, if I can summarise this, a lot of consensus that change and improvement in local government was needed. There was less consensus about exactly what that change should look like, which is why the next phase of that is intended to get into some of the detail of potential options. Ministers met with the COSLA leadership in February to discuss the ideas that have come forward in the first phase and to look at the next phase. The Aileen Campbell, who is the lead cabinet secretary for this, will set out with COSLA the next steps for the review process, shortly including the timetable for any legislative action that flows from that. I know that she would be very keen to work with your committee on the detail of that, too. I appreciate that. I wonder if you have any idea at this stage, except that the second stage is forthcoming, about the extent and the range of any anticipated legislation. For example, are we expecting minimal changes or a more fundamental rethink of local government structure? I think that it would be premature for me to say at this stage what particular specific changes we would anticipate before the next stage of the engagement takes place. There are a range of views that came forward in the first phase, but it was not the case that there was a coalescing around a particular model. It is also really important that this is not something that is decided by the Scottish Government and then done to local government. COSLA and local government are key partners in that, and we are taking that forward together. I would like to sit here and say that here is the model that will go into legislation and that we will be talking about. I think that it is important to allow that next phase of engagement to take place and for the more concrete proposals to flow from that. What plans does the Government have in mind to strengthen local democracy and encourage local authorities to engage further with communities about local decision making and how that feeds into what you are expecting to come out of local governance? A lot of local councils are already—I mean, I know in our area in Glasgow the work that Glasgow City Council is doing around participatory budgeting is very positive, and I would encourage them and other councils to continue with that. Obviously, we have a number of proposals in train right now to give councils more powers around certain aspects of revenue-raising, some of which are controversial. The workplace parking levy, which is obviously very relevant to the climate change discussion that we had earlier on, and the issues around a transient visitor levy as well. Those are not about the Scottish Government telling local government what to do or what not to do. It is about empowering local government to make the decisions that are right for their own areas. That is something that I think most people in local government would say has not happened far or fast enough in recent years, and there is an appetite for that to continue. I call lastly Jo Ann Lamont, convener of public petitions, Ms Lamont. Thank you very much. We have had this conversation before, but you will know that the petitions committee deals with a wide variety of issues, as wide as new people who want to put petitions in. If you were looking at seams, you would say that they are very often driven by concerns about a policy by a Government or by a public body, but as often by a concern about the gap between what Government policy or public body policy is supposed to be and the lived reality of people, of individuals, families and communities. As an example, we are currently dealing with a petition highlighting the concerns of the implications of the GP settlement for rural and island GP practices. I wonder what equality impact assessment you made on that settlement before it was taken forward, and, probably most relevantly, what island proofing, rural proofing was done in that policy? I will ask the cabinet secretary to write to the committee if she hasn't already done so on the specifics of that in terms of formal equality impact assessment. Of course, the GP settlement was an agreement that we reached with the BMA that went out to ballot among the GPs. One of the central commitments in that was ensuring that no rural GP would lose any income as a result of that. The new contract is very strongly supported by the BMA, which represents GPs, although I do, and I am not dismissing the concerns that are being expressed by rural GPs. We will continue to listen and try to address and respond to those as firmly as possible. I am not sure what stage that petition is at before your committee, but, as we do with all petitions, we will look carefully at the evidence given and any outcomes of them. I cannot overstate the importance of this petition to the petitioners and people around about them. They do make a very compelling case, when, in fact, hearing from the cabinet secretary tomorrow, we will have afforded the opportunity to pursue that. Further, I would not make the point to you that there was only a 39 per cent turnout, and that 70 per cent of those voted to support the settlement, but that exposes the very issue that I am trying to look at with your own process, because that may look like an endorsement of a policy. If you were doing an equality impact assessment, if you were looking at it by how it affects individual groups or areas in terms of policy, you might discover something very different. Overall, people are content with it, but in a rural and island community—I am talking about all policy—it might actually be very different. Government has committed to island proofing as part of the island's agenda. I am assuming that Government is comfortable with expanding that a little to be rural proofing as well. What does that look like in terms of that? Are you saying that you do not know whether a rural impact assessment has been done on that? If you do not know, should there have been one done? That goes to the heart of all policy, which I would assume is a good policy, which starts with testing the consequences before you move to saying this is what you are going to do. In general terms, I agree with the premise of your question. One of the things that all Governments have to consider and be open-minded to and where the Petitions Committee of this Parliament plays a very important role is that relationship between policy and the policy intentions and the experience on the ground. I agree with that. I am not going to sit here and say for reasons that I will come on to in a second where this is what we are talking about here is not. It is slightly different to a Government consultation on a policy. I will get you the information on the assessments that were done. If a settlement is being offered on your behalf, surely you would need to satisfy yourself as a Government that is going to have a fair and equitable outcome for everyone before you would even sign up to it? I have said that I will provide you with the information of exactly what assessments were done on that. I think that that is probably more helpful to you than anything else I can do right now. In terms of the general point here, this was not a proposal that was negotiated between the Government and the BMA. The BMA then put it out to ballot. In terms of turnout figures and such, that was a ballot done by an external professional organisation. It was not a Government consultation. I cannot comment on the arrangements within the BMA for promoting increased turnout. A more general point would be that if there was an overwhelming opposition to a contract like that, I would have expected to see that more generally come across in the ballot. Of those who voted, there was an overwhelming endorsement of that, although we recognise and accept that there are particular concerns being expressed by rural GPs. You asked me a question about island proofing and rural proofing. Again, I am happy to give more consideration to give you a more fuller and more considered answer on that. The island proofing obviously comes from the islands bill that went through Parliament, so there is a statutory underpinning to what we have agreed to do there. If there is a way in which we can broaden that to more rural proofing, I am very happy that we give that consideration and perhaps draw on some of the experiences and evidence from that petition in making those decisions. I appreciate that you are not going to pull over the detail of a particular settlement. The settlement was negotiated on behalf of your Government. If we are committed to effective equality impact assessments and effective rural proofing and island proofing, we have to apply it to all policy. The fact that there is a majority for something does not necessarily mean that it is not disproportionally having effect on a particular group whose voice is not so strong. In relation to the evidence that we have had, rural GPs are expressing concern. They are not engaging with the process that was set up. They have resigned from the short-life working group. The evidence that we have been given is that not just does this settlement cause problems for rural GPs because of the way in which they practice in remote rural areas where they cannot rely on teams coming in, but one has been taken out of poorer areas within urban settings and going to more prosperous areas. Partly because a lot of the money will follow older people and older people, if they live older, they are going to be living in more prosperous areas in one city. I am probably going on slightly too long. What I would really look for and assume from you is that in terms of policy, you start with the equality impact assessments, you start with the rural proofing on everything, because otherwise it is difficult to sign up to a commitment around equality, if that is not the mindset of those people who are working on policy on your behalf. First Minister, I am not disagreeing with that. Just for the sake of clarity, I am simply saying that I will provide you with the detail of exactly the different assessments and work that was done around the proposal that was put by the Government and how that developed as a negotiation developed. In terms of the GP contract, we will continue to listen to the views of rural GPs through the petition and in other ways that are expressed. In terms of some of the concerns that you have raised, which went broader than just rural, it is not just the Scottish Government saying that we do not agree with those concerns. The BMA, which represents GPs, said that they do not agree with those concerns and have themselves said that they think that, although I am sure that they would want improvements in all sorts of areas, that they think that this is a good settlement and a good contract. It is not here simply that the Scottish Government is saying one thing in the profession, saying the other. The profession overall supported this contract and the BMA have disagreed with some of the concerns that have been raised. I want to make my point for me because, historically, we know that organisations representing groups did not necessarily represent groups within that. Can I just say the points? I want to be fair to everybody because you have had well over your time, but I am going to allow other people in now for something that you can come in at the end. I have time in hand. I want to go back to everybody around the table. I will get Margaret Mitchell and everybody else when they come with a supplementary for the committee. Then, Joanne, if you want to come back in, I have Lewis MacDonald. Anybody else? Bruce Crawford, right? That is for starters. It is often stated that a society is judged by its treatment of its most vulnerable members, First Minister. With that in mind, the Justice Committee carried out work on elder abuse. Do you agree, First Minister, that there is a potential gap in the legislative framework to tackle the issue? Folling on from Jenny Marr's line of questioning, and to give you a specific example, do you consider that the issue of witnesses having difficulty again collecting data from various agencies, including Police Scotland, who told the committee that it was unable to provide any data on the number of offences against it elderly will require to be addressed? First Minister, we have welcomed the work that your committee has done in this area. Elder abuse, as we know, can take many different forms, but it is devastating for the victim when it happens. The criminal law has a role to play in this. This is a very relevant area in terms of the review of hate crime legislation that is already under way. We have consulted on a new statutory age aggravation under that consultation, which would mean that any criminal offence that is motivated by hostility towards someone on the basis of their age could be aggravated in court. Obviously, the hate crime bill will come forward shortly. We have also looked at wider changes to the law, such as a vulnerability aggravation, and a new offence of elder abuse will also be considered, so that the possibility of a specific offence there may help in holding perpetrators to account. There is also relevance here in terms of the Adult Support and Protection Act 2007, which provides a range of protection measures. We are currently reviewing that legislation alongside mental health and adults with incapacity legislation, so there is a lot in here that the work that your committee has done has helped to shine a light on and will help us to make decisions as we move forward. I think that the problem with the First Minister is that age is not a hate crime per se. There is your microphone on, sorry. Age is not a hate crime per se. The difficulty a lie seems to come when they are trying to identify the age that elderly abuse could start. What the committee is looking at, could we treat this the same as we have treated the domestic abuse coercive and controlling behaviour legislation, which is gender neutral, but still manages to tackle gender issues? If we had the same principle for elder abuse, we could still have the controlling coercive behaviour, where age is a factor, but it does not stop the legislation going through from a lack of having a definitive definition of the age that this offence would start. I am happy to consider that. It may be that some of this evidence has already been taken account of in the hate crime consultation, but if it is not, I am happy to look at that. I think that there would be just responding immediately to that, as I am sure that the committee has already said. I am sure that I think that there would be a number of complexities in how that would work in practice, but that is not to say that it is not something that we should look at doing. I do not want to go too much further than that today, before having had the opportunity to give it greater consideration, but I am happy to get the justice secretary to look at it and come back to you on it. The committee is on this very vexing issue. I just wanted to come back to some of the funding issues and transparency. You talked about brokerage as reflecting Government support for health boards and delivering patient care, but clearly it raises a question about the transparency of funding across the board. If you look at brokerage and one-off payments, and so on, they affect the distribution of funding. Over the years, you have answered many questions on the application of NRAC, the NHS Scotland resource allocation funding formula. One thing that everyone has agreed on in the past is that it was a transparent measure of whether boards were receiving more or less than NRAC suggested that they should. Do you think that it remains transparent in that sense with the additional funding streams coming into play? A particular new aspect of that is where there is funding to integration authorities, which is the social care element. The local government funding formula in some way is being taken into account, which seems to mix the methods of providing funding in that context. I wonder what your thoughts are of that. First Minister, I had hoped my days of having to give detailed explanations of NRAC were behind me, but clearly not. I think that as we change, and integration is the perfect example of that, as we change how services are delivered, the traditional funding arrangements and the transparency and scrutiny around those have to change and keep pace with that. In terms of integration, it is work in progress, and I think that it is important that we continue to make that progress, so that there is the same—probably people would say in the past that there has not been perfect transparency around health service budgets, but for integration authorities we have the same transparency as we do for looking at health budgets alone. You are right to some extent that brokerage is outside of that normal arrangement. That is why I think that the new arrangements that Jeane Freeman has announced will help with that, because it puts that on to a much more formal footing. That said, I think that if a health board was ever to—for whatever reason, because there will be different reasons that arise that give rise to the need for brokerage—if a health board was ever to find itself in a situation where it needed that help and the Government was deciding for reasons of NRAC compatibility or whatever not to give it, then I suspect that most people across Parliament would be saying, no, actually you should. Those things will never necessarily be absolutely perfect in how that is what comes from having the kind of relationship between Government and health boards that we have in Scotland, but through the different strands of work that we touched on earlier on, the information that has been provided to your committee now, the medium-term financial framework and the arrangements around three-year budgeting and flexibility for health boards, I think that we do need to continue to work to make that as transparent and as open to scrutiny as possible, and we will continue to try to do that. My committee has also been undertaking some work into earnings and pay policy, and one of the factors that is coming through in evidence is that over the last couple of years, in particular, earnings growth in Scotland has not kept pace with the rest of the UK, two main factors downturn in the oil industry and the London effect exacerbating that, but given the link and correlation between earnings and growth and the requirement in the fiscal framework for growth in Scotland and the UK to be at least equal or if we are not, then either we lose out or we gain. I just wonder what the Scottish Government, what more it can do in the area of trying to encourage earnings growth, as well as general growth in the economy, and with that, and not to make that even more complicated, is there opportunity through the climate change emergency that you have declared to look at how we are going about doing our business in Scotland to help to drive growth levels for the future and, therefore, ensure that the Scottish budget is protected under the fiscal framework? That is a big question. I am sure that the first minister is going to say that. That is an important question, but if I thought it in rack was difficult to explain, you have just given me a greater challenge, which is to try to explain the operation of the fiscal framework, which I think I will save you from, although you probably cannot explain it as well as I can. You are right in terms of the factors that drive the fiscal framework and, therefore, drive the block grant adjustments every year, so we pay very close attention to all of that data and all of that evidence. Often, when you alluded to this yourself, just looking at Scotland versus UK comparisons reveal what is a more complex picture underneath, where London and the southeast often skews the picture for the whole of the UK particularly. In terms of earnings, we are seeing lots of much more positive data as we come out of the impact of the oil price crash, both in terms of economic growth. This morning, we have got very positive data around productivity compared to the UK, as well as being positive in its own rights. All of that feeds into the data on earnings. We also put a lot of emphasis on the living wage campaign to try to use the levers at our disposal to lift particularly those on low pay up, because that helps with that as well. Earnings levels are important for the impact on individuals and families, obviously first and foremost, but how all of that plays into the increasingly complex way in which the Parliament is funded is very important. We would be keen to continue to work with the committee to try to understand those drivers and to make sure that we are doing everything that we can to try to influence it. First Minister, the Social Security Committee has just recently finished taking evidence on how the social security system, both of which are Scottish and UK-level and the local authorities, can best support those in housing need. We have still undergone deliberations in relation to that. One of the interesting things that emerged from that was information in relation to the homelessness and rough sleeping action group suggestion that, in terms of housing and homelessness and temporary accommodation, perhaps the money in the system is not used as meaningful as it could be, and if housing benefit money in that area was put into an overall pot of cash, we could do something really meaningful in relation to that. The committee still did a view on that, but I thought that that was an appropriate forum to raise that, given that it is not just a social security committee concern. We will get Bruce Crawford here as a finance committee concern about the prudent use of public funds. We have the local government committee convener here, there are key issues there and we have got the health committee convener here, and we have also got the education committee convener here. We look at the outcomes across all those indicators and there is really a need for both cross-party and cross-committee working if we are to really reform that area. My interest, of course, is the best use of social security monies to protect vulnerable people and get better outcomes. I suppose that I am looking for any information that the First Minister can give in relation to that, but more importantly, it is a commitment that you will seek to work cross-party and cross-committee in relation to whether that is the devolution of those housing benefit monies or it is an agreement with the UK Government in terms of how those monies can be used more imaginatively to support people in need. We will provide whatever information we can to help inform your deliberations on that if you want to tell us what would be helpful. On the devolution or agreement, I would prefer the devolution. I think that it is much easier to be innovative and flexible around that if you actually have control, but we would also look to see if we could reach an agreement if we thought that that was necessary. More generally, I am absolutely certain that all of the totality of the public resource supporting homelessness and supporting people in housing could be used better if it was used more coherently. The work that the homelessness and rough sleeping task force did is hugely important in trying to drive some of our policy change. Some of the work that we are doing now around housing first, for example. However, with any area of policy, the more preventative you can make the spend, the more impact it will have. A lot particularly around homelessness will not be unique here, but it will certainly be the case here. Too much of the money is spent reactively rather than proactively and preventatively. You make the point that that is not something that anyone in the Government department or perhaps given our current constitutional arrangements, even anyone in the Government can solve on its own. We need to look at it across the piece and we are certainly keen following on from the task force's work to continue to do that. Another issue that cuts across the whole public sector that the audit committee is very concerned about is severance pay. We have had issues recently in the Scottish Police Authority with huge golden handshakes and also on NHS boards with big payouts. Those payouts are often to reward failure, but that failure is rewarded at the taxpayer's expense. Derek Mackay has promised the audit committee Scottish Government policy on severance pay in the public sector, and we patiently await that. I was really looking to get from you, First Minister, what principles you would like to see underpin such a new policy at government level. Will you be looking for a cap on severance pay and do you think it is acceptable that taxpayer's money is spent on those huge golden handshakes that are often to reward failure? First Minister, I encourage you to be a little bit more patient on the policy. Decisions are in a final phase of that, so hopefully that will be shared with your committee soon. Some of the detail of the question that you asked me about caps and such will be answered and addressed in that. In terms of principles, failure should not be rewarded, and that should be a key guiding principle. There will be different circumstances and different types of severance payment, or perhaps often is not the right word to use there. Sometimes there will be a judgment made that it is better for the public purse to settle a dispute with a member of staff rather than to go through a process that may end up costing the public purse a lot more. Those will be difficult and often sensitive judgments, but it is important that they are able to be taken. However, as a general principle, we should not be rewarding failure. We shouldn't be giving people the ability to walk out of one public sector job with massive payments and walk back into another one shortly afterwards. Those are all the issues that I know are of huge interest, not just to your committee, but to taxpayers generally and issues that are relevant to the work on the policy that Derek Mackay is doing. That was a long session. I thank you, First Minister, for that. Do you wish to make any closing remarks to the conveners while I'm ahead? I should have said thank you very much for all of your questions. Where I have given a commitment to provide follow-up information, we will do that directly with the committee's consent. I don't think that you want the quote to be up quick while I'm ahead. Can I thank all the conveners? I think that I found this session very interesting. I think that the format is better, but we can talk about that later. Remind you have agreed to have biannual meetings with the First Minister, so the next one will be in October. I close this meeting and thank you all.