 Ukraine Radde awareness Thank you. We will now move to First Minister's questions Question one. Kezia Dougdale First Minister for what engagement she has planned for the rest of the day jeszcze Minist subsidiary Prime Minister, I understand that Jeremy Hunt will shortly announce in the House of Commons that the UK Government intends to impose a new contract on junior doctors. i gael eu hunudol i gael eu ddwyngoedd nôr, a chyflodau nhw i gael eu cyfnodau i gael eu cyfleoedd. Feidiw i gael eu gwirionedd gyda'r Gwbod y Llywodraeth Cymru i Gwyrdd ymlaen i'r Sgoledd. Cysa dygdial. Llywodraeth wedi gael gwaith y benderfyniad yng nghylch na yw'r prifsgol perthegiadau y ddod yng nghylch ar gyfer y parlym. Oedd y First Minister yn cael ei amser yng Nghymru yw ddiolch? Mae gydaennau'r bwmera o adygiad a shiftrfeydd ei wneud ymddiogedag yn ei dawnor receptwr, ond dim ddigon i Kezia Dugdale, mae morเรา manifestio hynny'n edrych chi am wrth С. Rwy'n credu iRI PYCRALips ac yn Outer kupol y mae'r pr undermau gwirrwyngau 11 per cent, £496 sy'n 2006, average spend per secondary school pupil has increased by 10 per cent, £618 sy'n 2006, 2007, and total revenue spending on schools has risen by £208 million. That's the record of this SNP government. We will continue to act to protect the numbers of teachers in our schools and we will continue to act to address the attainment gap. I am happy to ask the people of Scotland in a few weeks' time to judge us on that record. Here's the record of the SNP government. 4,000 fewer teachers, 152,000 fewer college students and the gap between the richest and the rest as wide as it has ever been. I listened very carefully to the First Minister there but there was no commitment to protect education spending in real terms for the next five years, so we can take from that response the education spending will be cut again with even more severe consequences. This afternoon, SNP-controlled Perth and Conross Council will hold a special budget meeting to discuss the cuts that they are being forced to make because of the choice that this First Minister has made. That's the SNP-controlled council in John Swinney's back yard. Here are the planned cuts, 186 pages worth of cuts, cuts to childcare, cuts to help for those with additional support's needs, cuts to early year teachers, cuts to maths and English teachers. Page after page contains a warning of SNP cuts that will harm our children's future. That's the reality from one of the First Minister's own councils. When will she stop pretending that her budget won't harm our children's future? As Kezia Dugdale is aware, we have put forward a settlement for local authorities that, yes, involves a 2 per cent reduction on their total revenue spending. That is a reduction offset by the £250 million that we are investing from the national health service into social care. That settlement, which has now been accepted by all of the local authorities in Scotland, enables us to protect households by freezing the council tax. It enables us to protect the number of teachers in our schools. It enables us to invest in and expand social care. It enables us, from October of this year, to ensure that all social care workers are paid a living wage. That is the reality of the position of this Government, of course in the context of a budget cut from Westminster imposed on this Government. A budget cut that Labour, when it campaigned so vigorously with the Conservatives, was quite happy to see imposed on this Parliament. Kezia Dugdale, Mr Dugdale. That ship sailed the moment she stood side by side of the Tories last week to impose cuts on our community. Let's be clear about what those cuts really mean. This document here—this is an SNP council—is cutting the entire budget for supply teachers. I will quote from the SNP council paper directly about the consequences of that cut. It states, that classes may have to be sent home and possibly schools closed. That is the scale of the cuts that she is forcing on schools. Today, this Parliament will have to set the Scottish rate of income tax for the very first time. The First Minister will have another chance to keep the anti-aesthetic promise that she made to stop these cuts to schools and other vital public services. For years, she has argued that more powers means fewer cuts. Today, the First Minister will have the chance to use these powers to stop these cuts. Will she finally take it? In the interests of accuracy, the ship of Labour campaigning hand in hand with the Tories has not sailed. That ship, Labour's ship, has been sunk and has sunk Scottish Labour completely. Let's turn to Labour's policy of raising tax for every single worker. Let's turn to Labour's policy of raising the basic rate of income tax for every worker in our country, earning £11,000 and above. We know how desperate Labour are by the volume of the insults that they like to sling across the chamber. There is a debate to be had in this country about tax, but it should be a proper grown-up debate about tax. Labour's policy is written on the back of a fag packet. The lack of detail quite frankly is embarrassing, but then it is a policy put forward by a party that knows it is 100 million miles away from being a credible opposition, let alone a credible alternative government. It is a dishonest policy because Labour knows that it will hit the low-paid. That is why they are suggesting a rebate but have not been able to answer a single question about how that works in practice. It is also a policy in its presentation from Labour, Presiding Officer, that is out of touch and callous. Kezia Dugdale stands there as someone who, like me and like all of us, has a decent salary. She suggests that increasing the tax bill of the low-paid by 5% somehow does not matter. I say to Kezia Dugdale that tell that to someone who is struggling to make ends meet, tell that to someone who has suffered years of pay freezes and is counting every penny. It is not fair and it is not progressive to shift the burden of Tory austerity onto the shoulders of the low-paid. That is probably why less than one in three voters back Labour's policy. I already warned the chamber about heckling the First Minister or anybody else that is speaking. There was a remark that came across the chamber. I did not quite hear it but I think from the reaction in the chamber there was the use of a word that was clearly unparliamentary. I will review the official report afterwards. If the member who used that word wished to admit it and withdraw it now, that would be helpful. If not, I will take action this afternoon. It is very clear from the evidence from the IPPR, from the Resolution Foundation, from SPICE, from the House of Commons library, from Professor David Dizer, from Professor David Bell that Labour's proposals are fair and they are workable. That is why council leader after council leader has backed it, that is why union leader after union leader has said it is fair. That is the truth that the First Minister cannot escape. The First Minister and I have something in common here, Presiding Officer. We both oppose George Osborne's austerity and we both want the best for our country. Where we part is that Labour has a fair plan that will ask some of us to pay a bit more and the wealthiest few to pay a lot more. Stop these cuts, cuts that would damage our economy and stop young people from achieving their potential, cuts that would see councils across the country slash spending on our schools and cuts to childcare that would hold working families back. Faced with the choice between using the powers of this Parliament to invest or cutting schools, why does the First Minister choose cuts? Kezia Dugdale and Labour do not oppose George Osborne's austerity. They campaigned with the Tories to keep us subject to George Osborne's austerity. What Labour wants to do is not end austerity but shift the burden of that austerity on to the shoulders of low-paid workers. Kezia Dugdale mentioned the resolution foundation. Here is what the resolution foundation said. There will be hard cases and poor families will lose out. That was on Labour's policy. She mentioned David Bell and David Iser from the University of Stirling. Here is what they said about Labour's rebate. That part of the proposal would require a comprehensive data-sharing arrangement between HMRC and local authorities in Scotland. It would impose a substantial administrative burden on local authorities. There are also questions as to whether such an arrangement would be even possible under the Scotland Act. Labour is perpetrating a contract on the lowest-paid workers in our society. The truth of the matter is that my tax bill will rise by 2.7 per cent if Labour's proposal was implemented. The tax bill of a teacher or a nurse would go up by 5 per cent. That, Presiding Officer, is not fair. I want to give Kezia Dugdale the opportunity. That is a tax rise that she wants to be implemented in seven weeks' time. If she wants to be taken seriously, let her answer those questions about her rebate. How much will it cost to administer? How will eligibility be assessed? How many of the half million pensioners who will pay a tax rise will even get the rebate? First Minister, the Opposition put questions to you. You do not put them to the Opposition. Ruth Davidson. To ask the First Minister when she will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. First Minister. No immediate plans. First Minister. Sorry, Ruth Davidson. For the first time, the SNP Government has taken over responsibility for managing payments to farmers. Here is how they have done so far. We have a botched IT system costing nearly half as much as this Parliament building, which still does not work. We have farmers fobbed off with promises that they would receive their payments by the end of January and only a third of them have. We now find that ministers were told of problems in 2014, but of course back then they were all too busy campaigning for independence. We know what their response has been. It came in five pages of excuses and lines to deploy that was emailed by mistake from the SNP to everybody in Parliament. So can I ask the First Minister, should her team, instead of getting their excuses in, be spending more time fixing the problem? First Minister. My team, both in Government and in the civil service, are working to make sure that we get payments to farmers as quickly as possible. The Cabinet is discussing this issue on a weekly basis. We are fully behind the farming community and we are doing everything possible to get payments to them as quickly as possible. It is true that processing payments has taken longer than we had intended due to the complexities of the new cap system, and we have been open with farmers and industry about the complexities and what we are doing to address them. We started paying the first instalment payments to farmers by the end of December. By the end of January, almost 30 per cent had been paid the first instalment, with further payments initiated since then. As of last week, the total number of payments committed was 35 per cent. Area offices are operating seven days a week. IT teams are working around the clock. Additional staff have been taken on in local offices. Richard Lochhead is working hard on this and has also been working with the banks to make sure that they take this into account in terms of their dealings with farmers. We will continue to get on with the job of making sure that we get those payments to farmers and we do so as quickly as possible. Ruth Davidson Blame complexity lines to deploy number four right there. She might be quoting straight from that document, but I will quote directly from the NFU Scotland president, Alan Bowie. He says, Time and again, the Scottish Government actions have not matched up to what has been promised. NFUS have lost trust in the system to the extent that the cabinet secretary's assertions cannot be taken as given. We also see today, or it's Scotland is launching its own investigation into this complete failure of management, warning that, and I quote, there is still significant risk to the successful delivery of this programme. The First Minister has lost the trust of rural Scotland. She's overseen yet another Government IT fiasco, and farmers no longer have confidence in her rural affairs minister. What reassurance, if any, can she give to rural workers today that this failure is getting the fullest priority of the Scottish Government? The reassurance that I can give to farmers is that we will continue to do what Richard Lochhead and all of us have been doing, which is concentrating on making sure that we get payments to farmers as quickly as possible. I've given Ruth Davidson and the chamber an update on the statistics so far, and this continues to change on a daily basis as more payments are made. We continue to work as hard as possible to make sure that as many of the first instalment payments are made by the end of March and the balance of payments as soon as possible after that. We're reporting progress, as I understand it, weekly, right now to the relevant parliamentary committee and to industry, and we're in regular communication with area offices to support faster processing and to unblock any issues that arise. That's what we will continue to do, Presiding Officer. Work as hard as we can to make sure that farmers get the payments that they are due. Issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the cabinet. First Minister, that is of importance to the people of Scotland. We've just heard that councils across Scotland are setting their budgets with £500 million worth of cuts. We've just heard also about Perth and Kinross. Right now, SNP-run Aberdeenshire Council is in its budget meeting. £3 million worth of cuts to education are on the table, but it's not too late for the First Minister to call a halt. Will she pick up the phone, or does she want her council to make those cuts? If Willie Rennie had picked up the phone to his Conservative colleagues while he was propping them up in coalition, we might not have suffered the cuts to our budget that were imposed on us by Westminster. As I've said, we have put forward a settlement for local authorities that reduces their total revenue expenditure by 2 per cent, offset by £250 million investment in social care. What we want to do is work with local authorities to make sure that that settlement protects the things that matter—teachers in our schools, social care investment, a living wage for social care workers and protecting household budgets. It's no surprise to me that the party that backed Ian Duncan Smith when he wanted to impose the bedroom tax doesn't care about increasing taxes on low-paid workers, but I do care about that. We'll continue to take a fair and balanced approach, and that will be one of the many differences between this Government and the Liberal Democrats. Willie Rennie. It's the same old excuses. I would have sympathy for the First Minister if she did not have the power to do something about it, but she does. The buck stops in that seat over there. This afternoon, the Parliament votes on the income tax resolution. One penny gives £475 million for education for Scotland's children. It's the power to stop the cuts, so she has the power. Why won't she use it? Is it pride? Is it our finance secretary or does she simply not care anymore? As I've said, it is no surprise to me that the leader of a party that spent five years in coalition with the Conservatives doesn't care about people on low wages, but I do care about people on low wages, struggling to make ends meet, spending every week, counting every penny and every pound. Willie Rennie's policy of putting a penny on the basic rate of income tax—he's not even pretending that he's going to try to compensate low-income workers the way Labour is—his policy would have everybody earning above £11,000 a year paying more in tax. I don't think that's fair. I think that's transferring Tory austerity to the shoulders of the low-paid. He might want to do that. I'm not prepared to do that. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's permission is on the impact in Scotland of the planned UK reductions to housing benefits for vulnerable people who stay in supported and women's aid refuge accommodation. The UK Government proposed to set the housing element of benefit claims to local housing allowance levels. As this is lower than the cost of rent and service charges in refuges and supported accommodation, this will have a catastrophic impact on some of the most vulnerable people in our society who rely on such support for survival. That includes women fleeing domestic abuse, disabled people, older people and some homeless people. The Scottish Government is concerned about those proposals, which were outlined in the UK Government's spending review. The social justice secretary has written to the UK minister for welfare reform to express our grave concerns and to seek urgent clarification on what protection will be provided for those in supported accommodation. Does the First Minister agree that the only way to stop both tenants and providers from the worry and distress being caused by those proposals is that the UK Government makes clear now that refuge and supported accommodation will be totally exempt from the local housing allowance cap? Yes, I do agree with that. Tenants urgently need to be reassured that their accommodation will be exempt from the local housing allowance rate so that they don't need to worry about their future. Providers of supported accommodation and refuge accommodation also need to have the security to know that they can continue to provide essential services and be able to plan for the future. The UK Government's proposals mean that there is now real uncertainty about the future provision of refuge and other forms of supported accommodation. Not just in Scotland, I have to say, but across the UK, despite an earlier announcement that changes to funding arrangements would be cost neutral. UK ministers can put an end to this worry now and I call on them to immediately announce an exemption for refuge and supported accommodation from the local housing allowance cap. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's position is on Douglas Westwood's forecast for North Sea decommissioning until 2040. First Minister, this report reinforces how important it is to support the sector at this time. Our first aim, of course, is to avoid any premature cessation of production, which is why the UK Government should ensure that the fiscal regime is not a barrier to activity and investment, as it often has been in the past. In addition, we must ensure that the decommissioning process is managed effectively. As we set out in the refreshed oil and gas strategy that was published on Monday, Scotland can play a leading role in the development of the decommissioning market. While some decommissioning activity is to be expected over the next decade, there are still substantial reserves to be recovered in the North Sea. Up to 22 billion barrels of oil and gas are estimated to remain. Newfields are continuing to come on stream. For example, the first production from Totals, Lagan and Tormor fields in the west of Shetland was announced just this week. It says that some decommissioning is to be expected, but 150 of our oil platforms are to be scrapped over the next 10 years, making decommissioning an urgent priority if we are to anchor these industrial jobs in Scotland. They are already sailing past our ports down to Hartlepool. Dundee, First Minister, needs a working river, not just a waterfront. I have met with Shell and DCom North Sea, and they have said that decommissioning can happen in our city. We lost out on the 750 renewables jobs that the SNP promised, but we have three factory closures over the past few weeks with lots of skilled people in our city looking for work. To the 100 engineers at Flint who are facing redundancy, can the First Minister pledge three things? That the oil and gas technology centre will be established in Dundee, that she will find economic development money, like she did for Aberdeen for our city, and that she will come to Dundee, meet with our decomm companies and see how we can scale up to a full-size industry in our city? Obviously, I give consideration to Jenny Marra's specific proposals, although, as I understand it, a city deal for Dundee is still under discussion. As she will know from the Scottish Government's position on the Glasgow and Clyde valley and Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire city deals, we are very supportive of city deals. It is important to say two things and to have a focus on two things. Firstly, avoiding premature decommissioning. That is why the announcements that we have made about support for North Sea oil and gas are so important. It is why the city deal investment and the additional investments are so important. It is why having the right fiscal regime is so important. Secondly, we need to make sure that, as decommissioning does start—which does not withstand what is happening to oil prices right now—it has always been the case, we need to make sure that Scotland is playing a leading role. Decommissioning will develop into a major business activity, and there is huge economic benefit for us from that. We created Decom North Sea, the decommissioning trade body, to capture and share good practice. We support the OGA's plan to establish a single decommissioning board so that we can drive forward innovation and efficiency, and we are committed to investing in the necessary infrastructure to support decommissioning activity. That, of course, is demonstrated through the £2.4 million funding from Scottish Government and Highlands and Islands Enterprise to develop the key in Shetland, but there will be other projects that we want to support as well. We are absolutely focused on that. That is demonstrated in the refreshed oil and gas strategy, and I would ask Jenny Marra to engage with that constructively. Patrick Harvie. Scotland is going to be dramatically more exposed to the risks from the inevitable decline in the fossil fuel industry if we simply kid ourselves that it is not happening already. Is it not clear that we face a very simple choice? Embrace the opportunities from decommissioning and accelerate activity in that regard as our principal focus or see those jobs go to bidders from other countries, which will gain the international reputation to be world leaders in the industry? First Minister. I noticed that Jenny Marra applauding a call for accelerated decommissioning of the North Sea. That seems a strange position to take. I agree with the first part of his question. I hope that he heard me say to Jenny Marra that we should embrace the opportunities of decommissioning. Where we differ is I do not think that we should be seeking to accelerate decommissioning. I think that we should be seeking to avoid premature decommissioning. We should also be doing what this Government has consistently done is to invest in the renewable infrastructure and renewable generation as well. We will continue to support the North Sea while supporting wherever we can the transition to renewable capacity. I think that that is the right balanced approach to take. Thank you. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the latest Bank of Scotland's purchasing manager index. I welcome the recent Bank of Scotland purchasing managers index. It signals the continued expansion of the private sector in Scotland at the start of this year. It also highlights that the services and manufacturing sectors continue to be affected by the challenges that we have just been talking about in the oil and gas industry and indeed by the global economic environment. That is why in supporting the Scottish economy we recently pledged £379 million of investment in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire and last week a further £12 million fund to provide financial support for people who are retaining retraining or undertaking new education. I thank the First Minister for her response. Despite the positive gloss that she puts in it, the PMI report from Bank of Scotland is one of a series of reports recently that I have had worrying news for the Scottish economy. Yesterday, the Scottish Government's national account survey showed that Scottish GDP per capita is now 1 per cent lower than the rest of the UK, when, two years ago, it was 6 per cent higher. In its draft budget, the Scottish Government announced a doubling of the so-called large business supplement for non-domestic rates, which will hit 26 per cent of businesses in Edinburgh, 25 per cent in Aberdeen, 24 per cent in Inverness and 20 per cent in Perth. How will the £60 million tax rate on Scottish businesses help to grow our economy? The increase in the large business supplement is lower than it was in 2011, but we have to take—this has been reflected throughout our discussions. We have on one side people wanting us to put tax up on basic rate income tax payers on the other side. We have got people wanting us to cut taxes for business. We will continue to take a sensible balanced approach to our budget to growing our economy and ensuring fairness for taxpayers. Murdo Fraser puts forward in characteristic style the doom and gloom view of the Scottish economy. Of course there is no room for complacency because of the global economic conditions, but let us just look at the reality in our economy. Our economy has grown for three years continuously now. We have a higher employment rate than the UK as a whole. Employment is now 67,000 above its pre-recession peak. We have a higher youth employment rate than the UK. Our female employment rate is the second highest in the UK. We are investing where our investment is required and we are continuing to support our economy as it moves forward. I would hope Murdo Fraser and the whole chamber would get behind this Government as it seeks to make sure that we continue to see growth in the Scottish economy.