 The next item of business is the consideration of business motion number 11981, in the name of Jofits Patrick, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a revision to the business programme for today. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press the request-to-speak button now. I call on Jofits Patrick to move motion number 11981. Minister. Moved. Thank you. No member has asked to speak against the motion therefore I now put the question to the chamber. The question is that motion number 11981, in the name of Jofits Patrick, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. We now move to topical questions. Question number one, Jenny Marra. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how the NHS is dealing with Ebola. Cabinet Secretary, Shona Robison. The First Minister will be making a statement on this matter shortly. I am sure that the whole chamber will be holding Pauline Caffee and her family and their thoughts at this difficult time. We will wish to join me in thanking all of the health professionals who have been involved in her care. Jenny Marra. I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer and we do indeed echo those sentiments in Kezia Dugdale. We will respond to the First Minister to those sentiments later. I would like to ask the health secretary, Presiding Officer. The health secretary in England and Wales has procured an additional 75,000 PPE Ebola suits for safety of their workers. I would like to ask the health secretary how many of those PPE Ebola suits we have in Scotland and how many isolation beds we have in Scotland. I say to Jenny Marra and the rest of the chamber that, of course, we are in very close contact with all NHS boards regarding their stocks of personal protective equipment to ensure that it is available and accessible. In addition, we have a national stockpile that boards can draw on as a reserve. We will continue to ensure that boards have access to personal protective equipment for safe Ebola preparedness and will maintain our national stockpile. In terms of the availability of support in Scotland for any cases, we have established three regional units for the management of possible or confirmed Ebola in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. There are 14 negative pressure rooms across those units and more than 50 isolation rooms. Of course, the reason that Pauline Carverky was transferred to the Royal Free was because it provides a high-level isolation unit. It is regarded as being the best facility for the whole of the UK with the high-level of expertise in treating patients with this type of disease, but we should be assured that, certainly within Scotland, as was the case at the Brownlee hospital, we have the ability to care for Ebola patients. However, it was quite right that the patient was referred and transferred to the Royal Free hospital for her on-going care. I am sure that we all wish to join together in offering our deepest sympathies to all involved in this terrible tragedy and thank the emergency services for all that they have done. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on events following the bin lorry crash in George Square on 22 December. I would like to express my condolences to the families, friends and loved ones of the six people who lost their lives. Jacqueline Morton, Stephanie Tate, Gillian Ewing, Erin McQuaid, Llyrain Sweeney and Jack Sweeney, who our thoughts are with them at this difficult time. Although nothing can provide comfort in such tragic circumstances, I can advise the chamber that a full police investigation under direction of the Crown Office and the Procurator Fiscal Service began immediately after the incident occurred. Interim reports to the Crown Office were received on 24 and 28 December. A formal report on the emerging findings of the investigation is due to be submitted by Police Scotland to the Crown Office by the end of January. The Crown Office must wait for all of the necessary inquiries to be completed before it can come to a final decision. I have been advised that the Crown Office will consider that report and, by the end of February, it will provide further details as to its timescale for any further investigations that may be required. My finish is by thanking all those who helped in response to this terrible incident. The response of the emergency services was exemplary. NHS staff have provided injured with the best care and attention possible. St Andrew's first aid volunteers and members of the public administered first aid and local cafes and restaurants provided food and drink to those caught up in this terrible incident. We have yet again seen the incredible spirit of the people of Glasgow. The city, and indeed the whole of Scotland, has pulled together to support those who have been most affected by this incident. Thank you, cabinet secretary, and I echo what the cabinet secretary has said in regard to the emergency services and others, not just in Glasgow, but throughout Scotland who came forward with their help. I welcome the fact that the initial report will be produced short as the cabinet secretary has said. Can I also ask the cabinet secretary if this report will be made public and whether a fatal accident inquiry will follow? I recognise the member's particular interest in this matter, given her constituency interest in the issue. The initial report by the police to the procurator fiscal will not be within the public domain as it requires to be considered confidentially by the Crown Office and the procurator fiscal service. With relation to the possibility of a fatal accident inquiry, any decision on whether there should be a fatal accident inquiry is a matter solely for the Lord Advocate, and it would not be appropriate for the Government to comment on that matter. The other thing that I want to reassure the member and other members in the chamber is that special staff from the Crown Office and the procurator fiscal service will keep the families advised on progress with regard to the investigation and will provide them with support at every stage of the investigation as it moves forward. I appreciate the cabinet secretary's response and reply to the families that was kept fully up-to-date on what is happening in relation to the fatal accident inquiry. If a fatal accident inquiry was granted, what action the Scottish Government would take to ensure that it is undertaken as expediently as possible? As I mentioned, the decision on holding a fatal accident inquiry is a matter solely for the Lord Advocate and it would also be for the procurator fiscal to apply to the sheriff to hold an FEI when investigations are complete. The Scottish Government does not have a role to play in setting down the timeframe for any fatal accident inquiry. I am sure that the member and others in the chamber will recognise that it is essential that a proper and thorough investigation is carried out so that the brief families do find out what happened and that it would be counterproductive to introduce an artificial deadline, which could mean that the investigation does not reach a satisfactory conclusion in establishing the facts around the incident itself. I can assure the member that the families will be kept informed of this whole matter moving forward and that the current office will continue to provide them with the support and assistance that they require. Liam McArthur Thank you very much to ask the Scottish Government what involvement it will have in the investigation into the sinking of the cargo vessel Semfjord in the Pentland Firth. Cabinet Secretary, Richard Lochhead As the Parliament will be aware, the upturned Semfjord was discovered on Saturday afternoon by the MV Rossi Ferry on route to Aberdeen. Unfortunately, despite an extensive search on land and at sea, the eight crewmen from the vessel have not been found. The maritime and coast guard agency has indicated that the search will not be resumed unless new information comes to light. I would like to extend our appreciation to the crews of the aircraft, lifeboats and naval vessel that undertook the initial search and rescue, in addition to the MV Rossi and her passengers and crew who were first on the scene and also the Northern Lighthouse Board vessel Farros. Also, I would like to note the efforts of the volunteer coast guard teams involved in the search operation as well. The vessel has now been located lying in the seabed in the eastern approaches to the Pentland Firth. The investigation into the sinking of the Semfjord is a matter for the marine accident investigation branch who we understand are undertaking their initial assessments at this stage. Circle North Link, as operators of the ferry, are already fully cooperating with the MAIB in the early stages of the investigation. Of course, our thoughts at this time remain with the families of the missing crew. I thank the cabinet secretary for that response. I believe that the whole chamber will want to send its condolences to the families of the seven Poles and one Filipino who appear to have lost their lives in this awful tragedy. We should, as the cabinet secretary said, acknowledge and thank all those involved in the search operation over the weekend, including the RNLI coast guard and, of course, the crew of the North Link ferry, the Rossi. We have spotted the capsized vessel and indeed avoided a potentially nasty collision. The MAIB has begun its investigations and it is, as the cabinet secretary acknowledged, early dates. Does he accept that many of my constituency and elsewhere are asking why it took so long to establish that a ship of this size entering a busy stretch of water like the Pentland Firth had run into serious difficulties? Does he agree that the initial delay and the apparent lack of an EPIRB signal inevitably hampered the search and rescue efforts? Further, does he believe that it may be time to look at enhancing the vessel traffic system covering those important and busy waters? Well, due to some of the issues that Liam McArthur quite rightly raises in the chamber, the Scottish Government are in close contact with the maritime and coast guard agency to discuss with them the progress that the investigation will make and what issues will be taken into account. Of course, I am sure that everyone in the chamber will want to ensure that any lessons that can be learnt are learnt, but until we know the outcome of the investigation, of course, we are not really in a position to comment on the exact circumstances surrounding the tragic loss of this vessel. Thank you. I thank the cabinet secretary for that further response and I realise that he is constrained in what he can say with the MAIB investigation under way. Does he agree with me that every reasonable effort should be made in due course to retrieve the bodies of those who appear to have perished on board the chemfjord? If so, will he make appropriate representation to the vessel's owners to that effect? I thank Liam McArthur for raising that important point. At the moment, those are some of the issues that we are discussing with the maritime and coast guard agency. I understand today that the discussions that will be taking place between the owner of the vessel, the insurers and the various agencies involved will be considering such issues and we await the outcome of those deliberations. I wonder if the cabinet secretary shares my concerns regarding claims that have been made that the emergency towing vessel, the tug Heracles, took two and a half hours to respond to the sinking of the chemfjord. Will he join me in calling on UK ministers to investigate those claims? Of course, we all recognise the important role that the emergency towing vessels play in Scottish waters. The question raised by Mike McKenzie is also a question that we have asked the maritime and coast guard agency to clarify. I would remind the chamber and Mike McKenzie that many rescue services were deployed very quickly and took part in the search and rescue operation. However, if there are questions to be asked, it is really important that we ask those questions and get satisfactory answers. To ask the Scottish Government what contact it has had with the administrators of CityLink Ltd. I spoke with the administrators, Ernst and Young, at the earliest possible opportunity to offer support from the Scottish Government for the business and for employees who may be facing redundancy. I again spoke with the administrators yesterday when they advised that there was no future for the business as a going concern. I reaffirmed our offer of support for affected employees through our PACE initiative. I met representatives of the RMT union this morning to discuss how best we might support affected employees. I have asked both verbally and in writing that the administrators assist us in contacting affected employees directly to provide a programme of tailored support. PACE will, as soon as practical, hold four or five events in the areas where the company operated depots. I have also written to Joe Swinson MP, Minister in the UK Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to seek her support in progressing claims for the workforce redundancy payments as speedily as possible through the Edinburgh office of the insolvency service. I thank the minister for that positive reply. I wonder what his or the Government's considerations of the timing of the announcement if it had to be at Christmas, which seemed very unfortunate for the workers. Minister? Well, there is probably no good time for a worker to learn that he or she has been made redundant, but I must say, Presiding Officer, that having dealt with a very large number of cases over the last few years, this case is particularly shocking that the news broke on Christmas Eve, and I think that is something that we very much all regret. That is why it is extremely important that the administrators obtemper the undertaking that they said in a press release that they were to fulfil, namely that employees affected by redundancy will be offered appropriate advice and support on making claims for redundancy and notice pay. This morning, I was advised by the RMT representatives, Gordon Martin, McHog and McWard, that no advice or support of any practical sort was provided individually to any of the workers, which of course means that those forms are likely, in some cases, to have been filled in incorrectly. That, in turn, will lead to delays. Therefore, I am grateful that Mr Mason has raised that for his constituents, but also for all of the city-link staff of nearly 200 in Scotland, so that they can receive the support that they have promised from the administrators and, indeed, from their former managers of city-link themselves. Mr Mason? I thank the minister again for that. Does he have any view as to why this company has been unsuccessful when other companies in what is quite a competitive market area have been more successful? There are suggestions that this company has really has been badly run for quite a long time. Minister? That certainly is the suggestion clearly conveyed to me by the RMT, who mentioned several layers of management. It is not really for me to form a judgment. That will not particularly help those who have lost their jobs. However, I am determined, as the Minister for Business, to make sure that our PACE, which is a task force, provides the support that is very often of productive and constructive nature, resulting in more than two-thirds of workers who are made redundant in finding other jobs within six months. That is why I discussed, for about 90 minutes this morning, with Mick Mc and Gordon, the appropriate arrangements that PACE will make, and Margaret Souter and Callum McLean attended the meeting as well. They will be held in four or five areas in Scotland, we hope, in the third or fourth week in January. Intimation will be given to as many of the workers concerned. However, the practicality is that, unless we know the names and addresses of the workforce and self-employed people of whom there were several driving vans for which they paid, it will be difficult for us to make sure that each of those individuals is able to attend these events convened for them. That, too, is why I re-emphasised the support that we need from Ernst and Young to ensure that this job is done properly and done without further delay. The situation with CityLink has had a knock-on effect on some small to medium-sized businesses, including a recruitment business within my own region. That is all the considerable amount of money by CityLink. What action can the Scottish Government take to ensure that those businesses are supported at this time? I am very happy if Siobhan McMahon wants to write to me about any individual case to look at it as carefully as I can. Plainly, if credit has been extended to a company such as CityLink and it has gone into liquidation, then, sadly, all too often is that the reality is that the small company is left in the lurch and the debt must be written off. Sadly, that is the reality of the situation. It raises questions as to what exactly occurred in the last few months of the operation of CityLink. Those are matters that I believe the RMT believes should be investigated and I have urged them to raise specific concerns with the administrator. Finally, it is, of course, the duty of the administrator inter alia to carry out such investigations as may be appropriate into the circumstances that led to so many people, whether they be employees, contractors or small businesses, being left in the lurch on Christmas eve. John Pentland? I understand that, in some areas such as London, CityLink workers are being offered jobs by other delivery firms who will be picking up businesses as a result of CityLink's demise. Can the minister advise what contact the Scottish Government has had with firms in Scotland to encourage them to do likewise? I am very sorry, but I am not sure that I caught all of Mr Pentland's question, and I undertake to look again at it after the debate and to speak to the member, of course, if he wishes to be so to do. I would say that we are not making efforts working with the Job Centre to make sure that, at each of the events that I have described, there will be appropriate presence of those who may be in a position to offer alternative work or jobs to those drivers who find themselves on the dole as a result of the CityLink decision. Thank you. We now move to the next item of business, which is a statement by the First Minister on Ebola. The First Minister will take questions at the end of her statement, and there should therefore be