 ni'nicswp gyda mae hynny, ond yn syr fan hyn yn ei petholces iawn, ac yn uwch, neud iechyd mae y pethau yn gwybodaeth gyda ni'mu ac ein stryd yn hynny. That next question is question 1, Kezia Dugdale. To ask the Deputy First Minister what engagements he has planned for the rest of this glorious day. The first minister is currently in the United States on Government business, and has asked me to answer questions on her behalf. Later today, I will travel to Rottus yn ei prifodol i gaelGovernodau Arfer, oherwydd i yn ddechrau i'r honi Ffocw Leland Rhath Ellieag yn gadob gyda'r dderfnyddio. Gwisiddodd Duc Ddol? Y journalists' y Push News published today confirms that two thirds of North Sea operators have been forced to cancel projects because of the recent fall in Oil Price. That's bad news for the industry, the economy of the North-east and for thousands of oil workers and their families. They need to know what the future holds for Scotland's oil and gas industry. Can the Deputy First Minister confirm when an updated oil and gas bulletin will be published? I can confirm that. The Government is considering the implications of the United Kingdom Government's budget back in March, which contained substantial changes to the taxation arrangements of the North Sea oil and gas sector. Once we have confirmed the extent of those changes and the implications of those changes, which obviously will flow through, into what we hope will be investment decisions made by companies given the fact that there has been such radical change in the taxation regime of the North Sea, the Government will publish the next version of the oil and gas tax bulletin. Presiding Officer, I did not hear a date there. The truth is that the SNP Government has had time to do the work. It has been one excuse after another. That is the fourth time in this chamber that somebody in his seat has refused to do that. Once upon a time you could not move for SNP oil bulletins, but since the collapse in the oil price, we have had nothing but radio silence. That may be because the collapsing oil price has demolished the SNP's economic credibility. We now know that the SNP will amend the Scotland bill to push for full fiscal autonomy within the UK. Something the right-wing Tory-backed benches will cheer because it means the end of the Barnett formula. Can the Deputy First Minister tell us what the oil price needs to be to balance the books under full fiscal autonomy? The first thing that I would say to Kezia Dugdale is that the Government publishes an annual oil and gas bulletin that reflects the changes to the North Sea oil and gas tax arrangements. The UK Government made very substantial changes to the taxation regime back in March. We want to see the implications of that in the oil and gas sector. That is necessary because there is every opportunity for companies to change their investment decisions because the UK Government has accepted the fact that it has got the taxation regime so badly wrong in 2011 that it has now changed those arrangements. When it comes to the issue of full fiscal autonomy, I think that Kezia Dugdale should learn the lesson from the fact that she has been going on and on and on about full fiscal autonomy for nine months all the way up to the general election and the Labour Party delivered the worst performance that they have delivered in 90 years in this country with a hemorrhage of their vote and the loss of 40 of their 41 seats. That tells me that Kezia Dugdale is out of touch with public opinion in Scotland. The Office of Budget Responsibility published in a full fiscal analysis within 24 hours. We have not seen one from this Government in over a year. We have got tired of waiting for this Government to do a fiscal analysis, so we have published our own. I hear cries of Mickey Mouse that it is not credible that they should listen because this is being verified by SPICE and independent experts. This is the oil paper that the SNP Government will not print. He did not answer my question, so let me give him the answer. We would need a global oil price of $200 to balance Scotland's books under the SNP's plans for full fiscal autonomy. So disastrous is the SNP's policy that is predicated on an oil price that has never been reached before. This is a number that has been approved by SPICE so that they can laugh all they like, but it is the reality of the situation. A Labour amendment to the Scotland Bill would establish an independent expert commission to look at the impact of full fiscal autonomy on Scotland's public finances. It would not have any politicians or any Government employees on it. The Scottish people would then have once and for all a full expert analysis of the impact of full fiscal autonomy. So can the Deputy First Minister tell us whether or not the SNP will back that amendment? Of course, it will be interesting to see what degree of dialogue and discussion there has been between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party about taking forward that amendment, because that would just be what I witnessed on Monday when I was in the House of Commons, the continuation of the Better Together Alliance between the Labour Party and the Tories over the Scotland Bill. I would have thought that the Labour Party might have learned a lesson from the Better Together Alliance. The Better Together Alliance has been described as a disaster for the electoral performance of the Labour Party in Scotland. If Kezia Dugdale is interested in taking forward a rational and considered discussion about full fiscal autonomy, I suggest that she only has to look at her back benches. Alex Rowley, speaking in the devolution committee debate on 21 May, said that the Scottish Government has put forward a stronger case and has a case for full fiscal autonomy. That is where the problem arises for the Labour Party. I am keen to move away from the politics of fear and have a discussion. What the Labour Party comes here, week in, week out, is to peddle the politics of fear. It did not work in the general election and it will not work now. In all that anger and all that posturing, I think that the answer was no. This is a finance secretary afraid of the verdict of impartial economists, running scared of the consequences of his own policy. What does it mean that £7.6 billion is worth of cuts over and above what the Tories are offering? Why? Because the truth of full fiscal autonomy is known by his colleagues in Westminster. It is the SNP constitution spokesperson who said that it would be a disaster. It was his new MP for East Lodian who described it as economic suicide. This is less about North Sea oil and more about the SNP's snake oil. He is trying to punt at something that he knows to be dodgy. For the sake of Scotland's schools and hospitals, should the Deputy First Minister not abandon this disastrous plan for full fiscal autonomy? It is interesting to listen to Kezia Dugdale's question that she uses language, which falls into the category of language that her leadership counterpart or her leadership rival, Ken McIntosh, talked about, as being about the negativity of the Labour Party defining itself against the Scottish National Party. That whole approach has been tried for months after months after months, and it has not worked for the Labour Party. What fiscal autonomy is about is about building on the powers of this Parliament, powers that over the past 16 years have seen an improvement in the economic performance of Scotland, where our GDP per head used to be sixth in the United Kingdom and it is now third in the United Kingdom, only behind London and the south-east, where productivity has increased from 96 per cent of UK levels in 1999 to being in line with UK levels in 2012. The moral of the story is that, where we can exercise distinctive economic policies in Scotland, we can transform the economic performance of our country. For me, that is what fiscal autonomy is all about. It is about enabling this Parliament to take the decisions that are right for Scotland, not to be at the mercy of a chancellor, a Tory chancellor that comes along one Thursday and takes £100 million out of our budget without a buyer leave. I want this Parliament to decide our own economic future and the Labour Party should see the opportunity of that for the people of our country. Ruth Davidson, to ask the Deputy First Minister when he will next meet the Secretary of State for Scotland. I met the Secretary of State for Scotland on Monday and we speak by telephone on a weekly basis. We know that standards of literacy and numeracy in our primary schools are falling. Even the First Minister said that she was frustrated that we do not have as much data for our primaries as we do for our secondary schools. That clearly has to change. One of our leading literacy experts, Professor Sue Ellis, told the Parliament this week that having a national bank of surveys and tests that schools can use as they see fit was, and I quote, one of the most useful things that you can do. Scotland does not have those kinds of tests right now. I think that we should, along with national testing, so that parents and policy makers have a far clearer picture of how pupils are progressing at every stage of their education. Does the Deputy First Minister agree? Where I agree with Ruth Davidson, the point that the First Minister made in response to Ruth Davidson on 21 May, is that there is not sufficient nationally held information on the performance of school pupils in the primary sector. I need to improve the availability of that information. That information exists child by child. It is obviously the subject of discussion between parents and teachers in the interaction that we would all expect, which takes place in our schools, the length and breadth of our country, about the performance of individual children. That is absolutely essential information to satisfy parents that children are progressing satisfactorily through the education system. However, where there is a weakness, that information is not collated and collected nationally, and that is the area that the Government is currently exploring. Obviously, the input of Dr Ellison to that process is the input that the Government will consider carefully. Ruth Davidson, the Deputy First Minister is right that I raised this in May. The reason that I am raising it again is because we need a clear direction from the Scottish Government and at the moment we are simply not getting it. First of all, we had the Education Secretary using a speech to publicly praise international education systems that employ rigorous testing and said that, for Scotland, and I quote, nothing is off the table. The First Minister then told me on 21 May that she wants more data on what is happening in our primary schools and she did not rule out further testing. However, this weekend, the leader of Scotland's largest teaching union revealed that he had been given, and I will quote directly, a categorical assurance from the Education Secretary that such testing would not happen. It seems that this Government is saying one thing to policy makers, another thing to Parliament and something different entirely to the teaching unions of this country. I appreciate that the First Minister is not here to give her answer, but can I ask the Deputy First Minister what is the Scottish Government's actual position on primary school testing? Back in the 13 May, Angela Constance answered Mr Buchanan in a topical question where she said, the Government's position is not to reintroduce things such as national testing, which is onerous for teaching staff and children. We need to address the need for more intelligent use of information. The First Minister then said to Ruth Davidson on 21 May that I am not, though, simply going to give Ruth Davidson a yes or no answer or jump to making decisions before we have properly considered what the right thing to do is. We need a new national performance framework, but we must ensure that the data that we are collecting and the way in which we are collecting it are right, proportionate and sensible. Mr Flanagan in the Herald newspaper at the weekend said, the Government wants to look at what data is in the system and use it more effectively, and they want to look at the role of different assessment, and we have no difficulty with that. What is happening is that the Government is doing what I think the public would expect us to do, which is to discuss the issue with a range of different stakeholders, to take their opinions and to establish that new national performance framework. In answer to Ruth Davidson, the Government is developing that new national performance framework and we will share information with Parliament once that process is completed. What Ruth Davidson should be assured about, and I hope that the parents of Scotland are assured about, is that the Government's absolute determination to work with our education system, with parents, with pupils and with stakeholders to improve educational performance and educational attainment in Scotland. That lies at the heart of the Government's agenda. Is this the question? Mark Doffreyser. The Deputy First Minister will be aware from media reports that Tayside doctors have claimed that the health board have manipulated waiting time figures by barring surgical teams from seeing patients, potentially putting them at risk. I know that the Scottish Government has asked the chief medical officer to investigate, but can the Deputy First Minister assure us that, given the seriousness of those claims and the potential threat to patient safety, the CMO's findings that we have made public are the earliest opportunity? I can give Mr Fraser that assurance that any findings or relevant information will be made public at the earliest possible opportunity, because we believe that it is essential that the public are reassured about the effectiveness of clinical services. Let me make a couple of points on this. Mr Fraser raised the issue that there was allegedly a ban on specialist surgeons entering the nine wells A and E department. Yesterday, on five separate occasions, specialist surgeons attended patients at the nine wells A and E department, as is normal practice on a regular basis. Mr Fraser also raised the issue of patient safety. That is absolutely central to the debate, because it essentially determines the effectiveness of clinical services. At nine wells hospital, nine wells hospital was required, as all hospitals in Scotland are required, to improve their performance on patient safety against the hospital standardised mortality ratio. They were required to increase that by 20 per cent by December 2015. I can say to the chamber that nine wells hospital has achieved not only that level early, but that it has achieved a 22.1 per cent improvement in hospital standardised mortality ratio. What that means is that patient safety within the hospital is improving, it is improving faster than it is improving in other hospitals in the country. I think that notwithstanding what the chief medical officer looks at on behalf of the health secretary, members of the public, and believe you me, that issue matters to me as an elected representative of the people of Persia who regularly use nine wells hospital. My family has used nine wells hospital and has an excellent clinical care for nine wells hospital. I think that we have to consider those issues and be reassured by the effectiveness of the hospital in improving patient safety. The Deputy First Minister will be aware that the Arches venue in Glasgow city centre in my constituency has gone into administration with a potential loss of 130 jobs. Aside from the fact that the Arches is one of Glasgow's most cultural venues, this is obviously a very worrying time for the staff facing redundancy. Can the Deputy First Minister assure those affected that the Scottish Government will offer all the support that it can? I very much understand the significance of the point that Sandra White raised on behalf of the Arches in her constituency. Creative Scotland is working hard with the organisation and with other partners to explore options regarding the future of arts programming of this nature in Glasgow. Creative Scotland agreed with Glasgow Life and Glasgow City Council to bring forward some of this year's support for the Arches, £92,000 from Creative Scotland and £37,000 from Glasgow City Council to assist with the delivery of the current arts programme in the short term. I reassure Sandra White that we will look in all ways that we possibly can do to assist in safeguarding the future of what I recognise as a significant cultural venue in the city of Glasgow and a venue that contributes a great deal to the culture life of Scotland. Question 3, Willie Rennie. To ask the Deputy First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the cabinet. The cabinet will discuss issues of importance to the people of Scotland. In the last few years, John Swinney has repeatedly told us that the time for full financial powers was now and the need was urgent. Can he try to explain what his MP Tommy Shepard meant when he said that full fiscal autonomy would be a disaster and a silly thing to do? What Tommy Shepard was doing was explaining the approach that the Government set out in its manifesto where we made clear that the delivery of full fiscal responsibility would have to take place over time. I do not see why that should be a particular revelation to Parliament because on the Kalman powers, the Kalman powers were published in 2010 in a command paper and only in the spring of next year will we see the devolution of income tax powers. That is the point that Mr Shepard was making. The Government has set out on repeated occasions the importance that we attach to acquiring the economic powers in Scotland that will enable us to strengthen the performance of our country, create new opportunities and open up possibilities for the people of our country. Willie Rennie. So they are no longer urgent. On full fiscal autonomy, the SNP, to be frank, has been all over the place. It was in the manifesto, then out, then back in again. Now its MPs say, let somebody else decide. It started as the okey-cokey and it's ended as pass the parcel. It's no wonder that, considering the £7.6 billion price tag, shouldn't the Deputy First Minister just admit that his full fiscal autonomy plans are a disaster and would be a silly thing to do? The one thing that you could say about the Scottish Liberal parliamentary group in the House of Commons is that they couldn't play pass the parcel, because there's not enough of it, and there's barely enough over there to play. They're not even all here today to play pass the parcel. Mr Rennie asked about the Government's and the Scottish National Party's commitment to full fiscal autonomy. The First Minister made clear during the election that we would bring forward amendments to enact this during the Scotland Bill. I made it clear on the 31 May on the Politics Scotland programme. I heard with my own ears that Angus Robertson would make it clear in the House of Commons on Monday. The question is, do the Liberal Democrats have any interest whatsoever in equipping this Parliament with the powers to strengthen Scotland's economic performance and deliver new economic opportunities to the people of Scotland, or are they prepared, just like they were prepared to do for the past five years, to resign themselves to decisions taken by Tory ministers that axed our budget and reduced public spending in Scotland? I want that control to rest here so that we can decide the future of our country. To ask the First Minister what the impact of the Chancellor's in-year budget revisions will be on Scotland. The Scottish Government's budget will be reduced by £107 million as a result of the announcement made by the Chancellor last Thursday. The Government believes that this to be utterly unacceptable. Not only has this Parliament already set its budget, but this country voted in the clearest possible terms against further austerity. Despite that, just a week or two after David Cameron promised to govern with respect, the UK Government is reducing budgets yet again. I met the Chancellor on Monday to put forward an alternative, which encouraged him to use the flexibility at his disposal, and I hope that every party in this chamber will join us in calling on him to do exactly that. I thank the Deputy First Minister for his answer. I know that the First Minister wrote to party leaders to ask them to join with the Scottish Government in condemning the approach from the Chancellor. I wonder if the Deputy First Minister could advise us whether there has been any response from party leaders. Also, in light of the upcoming July budget from the Chancellor, whether he expects perhaps a different approach from the Chancellor to be taken in relation to consulting with this Parliament and the Scottish Government before making such decisions at the dispatch box. To the best of my knowledge, we have not received any replies to the First Minister's letters that were issued on Friday. The second point that Mark McDonald raised is in relation to the forthcoming United Kingdom budget in July. The Scottish Government set out to the Chancellor on Monday an approach that he could take, which is within the fiscal mandate that the Chancellor has legislated for in the last Parliament that would enable him, over the course of the next five years, to invest about £93 billion more in public expenditure and public services than is the subject of the current plans of the UK Government. We will advance that argument and discuss it with the Chancellor on any opportunity that we have, and we had that opportunity on Monday to take that forward. However, the Government believes that the correct approach at this stage in economic recovery is to invest in public services and public spending. We argued for an increase of 0.5 per cent in real terms in public spending over the course of this parliamentary term, and we encourage the Chancellor to consider that issue. I advise the cabinet secretary and the Deputy First Minister that we have not yet received the letter, but we will indeed respond to it when we do. We share the Scottish Government's concerns about in-year budget revisions. The Deputy First Minister, of course, has a number of options to consider. He has already said that he might raise taxes. Could he tell us by what level? Is he also considering using the new borrowing powers that devolved to Scotland in April this year? I would have thought that my opposite number in the Labour Party would have known that I have already committed to using the borrowing powers that we acquired in April to their full extent for this current financial year. That is a piece of elementary information that reading of the budget document would have satisfied, so I am a bit surprised that Jackie Baillie has raised that with me, to the tune of £304 million. On the second point about taxation, as Jackie Baillie knows, in the spring of next year, we will acquire the Calman income tax powers, the Scottish rate of income tax. However, what the Obligers to do is if we wish to change one tax rate, we have to change each of the three tax rates in unison. If we, for example, wanted to increase the top rate of income tax, we would have to increase the basic rate of income tax and the higher rate of income tax into the bargain. That was what the Calman process delivered. Of course, the Calman proposal has not even been implemented before it has been unpicked because of its unsatisfactory nature. Of course, I will consider all the taxation decisions that I have to make. I will make them in good time in the budget process and, in the normal fashion, I will advise Parliament accordingly. To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government will take following reports that more than 14,000 people facing bills for personal and social care are in arrears. Local authorities set charges for social care, and they have a duty to ensure that the charges that they make are fair and affordable. Where people are in genuine hardship, local authorities are able to take into account individual circumstances and waive or reduce charges. The Government is supporting the implementation of integration of health and social care around the country with investment of more than £500 million over three years. We have also increased the local government finance settlement to over £10.85 billion in 2015-16. We have already ensured that those in the last six months of a terminal illness do not pay for the care that they receive at home, and we are currently working with COSLA to improve the fairness and the consistency of the system for charging for social care. I hope that the First Minister shares my concern that thousands of Scotland's disabled and elderly community are falling to debt because of social care charging. He mentioned the talks that are on-going with COSLA to try and tackle Scotland's care tax. Those talks have been going on not for weeks or months but for years and with no avail, and I believe that last year the disabled organisations walked out of those talks in frustration. Can I ask the Deputy First Minister whether he will take a new tack? My colleague Siobhan McMahon is about to launch a consultation on a member's bill to abolish the care tax in Scotland. Will the Deputy First Minister reach out across the chamber to other parties and work with us to abolish his tax on Scotland's disabled community? I certainly can say to Mr McIntosh that the Government will engage carefully with the proposals that Siobhan McMahon brings forward. Ministers would be happy to have that discussion with Mr McMahon on how those issues can be taken forward. Of course, there are a whole range of different complexities around the care charging regime, which varies from area to area with different positions taken by different local authorities. There are certain standards that the Government requires to be taken forward, and we have enacted some changes in that respect, which I set out in my earlier answer to Mr McIntosh. However, the Government will continue to take forward the discussions with the relevant interested organisations to ensure that the concerns that have been legitimately raised are properly addressed. Minister, whether the Scottish Government met its 2011 pledge that there would be no compulsory redundancies in colleges throughout the college merger process. In 2011, the then Cabinet Secretary for Education and Life Law learning, Michael Russell, made clear our wish that colleges avoid compulsory redundancies. Ministers have since done all in their power to encourage colleges to follow that lead, particularly at the outset of the college reform programme, when the Minister for Skills and Life Law learning wrote to all college principals encouraging them to adopt a policy of no compulsory redundancies for staff. The then Cabinet Secretary for Education in guidance to the Scottish funding council repeated the expectation that colleges avoid compulsory redundancies. I thank the Deputy First Minister for that answer, but the fact of the matter is that the Scottish National Party should never have made a firm pledge over which it had no legislative control and for which it has obviously conveniently shifted the blame of compulsory redundancies on to college principals. However, the Scottish National Party does have that legislative control over the spending on college places. Why has it allowed college places to fall by a third since 2008, with clearly more cuts to come, as was evidenced by Fife College this week? First Minister, we have been around this territory before about college places. The number of places to which the Government committed to maintain was at 116,000 places, full-time equivalent. What we know from the data is that that figure has not only been maintained, but we have delivered 119,000 full-time equivalent college places in the college sector. I would like to take this opportunity to thank those in the college sector who have dealt with a process of reform that has been challenging—I accept that it has been challenging—but it has delivered greater full-time equivalent places for the college students of our country, which has given those individuals a greater ability to enter the labour market because their skills have been at a more sophisticated and effective level. That is what our economy needs. We need to have people who have deep skills who can contribute to our economy, and the college reforms have delivered exactly that. Members who leave the chamber should do so quickly and quietly.