 The next item of business is a debate and a statement by the First Minister. Members wish to take part in the debate, but it should press a request to speak buttons now. I call on Kezia Dugdale to speak, Mr Dugdale, 18 minutes. I thank the First Minister for her advance sight of that speech. I expect she remembers what it is like to be leading your party from the Opposition benches. Indeed, I remember as a student watching her opposite a Labour First Minister debating the programme for government back in 2006. It is a privilege to be here. It is a privilege to serve, and it is a privilege that I will never take for granted. I promise the First Minister and her Government this, where the Government shares our ambition for the people of Scotland, where the Government shares our determination that where you come from matters less than where you want to go, where the station that you were born into matters less than the talents that you have, and where the Government recognises its responsibility to nurture talent, to support aspiration and help those who find themselves in need, the Labour Party is ready and willing to stand with you. Where the Government lacks ambition or shows timidity and where it fails to meet the aspiration of a new generation, then you will find us equal to the task of opposition. The Scottish Labour Party that I lead won't exist to face off SNP ministers here in the chamber, but will rather turn and face the country. We will work for a Scotland where everyone gets the opportunity to unlock their talents, to know the dignity and satisfaction of work, for an environment protected for all and enjoyed by all, for a dynamic economy where entrepreneurs are supported to create the jobs opportunities and wealth that Scotland needs to thrive. The First Minister has placed educational inequality at the heart of her statement today, and I welcome that. She knows that I am passionate about ensuring that every child gets a fair chance in life. The First Minister has asked us to look at her Government's record. She says that it is a strong foundation for the future. But if we look at those children in their final year of primary school, who have spent every day of their school years under this Government, we do not see a record to be proud of. 93 per cent of those children in primary 7 who come from the least deprived backgrounds are performing well at reading. That is compared to just 81 per cent from the most deprived backgrounds, a 12 per cent gap in reading. When it comes to writing, it is 77 per cent from the least deprived compared to just 56 of the most deprived. That is a 21 per cent gap in writing. With numeracy, it is 77 per cent of kids from the least deprived areas reaching the appropriate levels, compared to just 53 per cent of the most deprived. That is a 24 per cent gap in numeracy between the richest and poorest pupils. Almost half of the poorest kids leaving primary school are unable to write properly or to count properly. That should shame us as a nation. We in this chamber are responsible not just for caring for those children during the hours that they are at school but for preparing them for the opportunities of the years to come, and by any measure we are failing them. I started the day this morning by joining the breakfast club at the Royal High Primary School here in Edinburgh. For £30 you can have some toast and juice and start the day well, but the council here in Edinburgh is under increasing financial pressure and is faced with the choice of either scrapping that breakfast club or charging £2 a day to meet its costs. That is a Labour and SNP council, so the First Minister and I both share the responsibility for keeping that breakfast club open. In fact, we both share the desire to see tackling educational inequality as the number one priority. After months of debating inequality in this chamber, we can now see real action. That is great. We have seen money invested in education advisers. Let's see money invested now in the teachers who are working with those pupils who face the biggest barriers to educational achievement. We know who they are and where they work. We know so many of those teachers already defy the odds daily and help their pupils to shine. We can reward those teachers, we can give them more classroom assistance, we can bring in a new enhanced teacher grade to raise the skills and rewards of those teaching in the most challenging classrooms. The SNP has led the way on that already with a programme for head teachers. They can do it again should they wish for teachers on the front line to have the same support. There is so much more that we can do now. We can recognise that to improve literacy amongst children, we have to improve literacy for mums and dads and primary carers. We can scrap fees for exam appeals so that all young people who want it can get a fresh look at their grades. We should move mountains to help to look after children for those are our kids and their future lives in our hands. We can take a fresh look at school inspections. Today, 90 per cent of schools are inspected as satisfactory or better, but satisfactory means that the strengths only just outweigh the weaknesses. That is why I believe the First Minister should immediately suspend all school inspections for one year and use the time to redesign the inspection regime. I would like to see more unannounced inspections and those inspections must be used to drive excellence for all. No parent wants a satisfactory education for their child. They want the best possible education for their child and it is my mission to ensure that they have the best possible start in life. After educational inequality, the inequality between the genders should be the top of the First Minister's list for the year ahead. Much has been said over the summer about having three female leaders and that this chamber is good for Scotland. I agree, but it is not enough for us to just stand here. I feel a greater responsibility than I ever have before to deliver material change and equality for women as I lead my party. We welcome the moves to introduce an offence for revenge porn and hope that we will quickly follow the rest of the UK where individuals are already being convicted of this offence. Putting into the public domain material of the most private and personal nature is not simply an abuse of trust, it leaves the victims feeling humiliated and ashamed and I believe that there is more we can do to protect women from other forms of domestic abuse and sexual assault so I welcome the bill announced today. The number of rapes reported to the police has increased over the past year and a fifth of those report being raped whilst asleep. We need to do more not just to tackle these crimes but to tackle the culture that means that these offences still persist in a modern Scotland. I would urge her in the year ahead to give proper consideration to how we use the education system to teach young men and young women about sexual consent. Today, a young woman, no matter how hard she works, will experience institutionalised barriers in her way to success. For some young women, it will not matter how hard they work, they will not make it unless Government eradicates the injustices in her way. It is our duty in this chamber to break down those barriers, whether it is access to science and technology skills, whether it is tackling the gendered violence that one in four women will face, the culture of low paid work, low skills and part-time work or the motherhood penalty where women lose positions or promotions for going on maternity leave. Having women leaders talking about those issues is a start but it is only a start because we will be known by our deeds, not just our words. I welcome her focus on growing the economy and the recognition that the strategy that was set out last year needed more detail and a plan for implementation. The single most important issue that we can get right is childcare. I believe that we have a consensus across the chamber now that childcare is not just a social policy, it is a hard-nosed economic policy, striking right at the heart of labour market participation. Together, we accept that high-quality, affordable and accessible childcare can transform the lives and open up opportunities. As in previous years, the First Minister has spoken out today about increasing the number of hours available, but she will know that McLean commission on childcare made clear this summer that what matters is not just the hours available, it is that they are affordable and accessible to working parents. That same report highlighted the fact that we spend as much on childcare here in Scotland as they do in Denmark and Sweden, but we get nothing like the return for our money. I urge her to use the year ahead to take a fresh look at her approach to childcare and ensure that the policy is designed to fit around parents' lives rather than to fit into an election leaflet. Any economic plan also has to recognise the problems faced in our oil industry. The problems around jobs and the sustained low oil price haven't gone away. In response to this some months ago, the First Minister launched an apprenticeship scheme, but since then only 12 people have been helped by this scheme to a backdrop of thousands of jobs lost. In the medium term, we need to find and support action in the industry. In the long term, we need a serious national effort to prepare for a post-oil economy and to take advantage of the economic opportunities of decommissioning, which will otherwise go to other parts of the UK and across Europe. We have to recognise that a serious economic plan needs analysis and that data that we can trust is free from political interference. As we welcome the Scottish Fiscal Commission Bill, we renew again today our call for an independent fiscal watchdog. Growing our economy means improving productivity. We can only achieve that with investment in skills. I wonder what functions Kezia Dugdale believes that the Fiscal Commission will be undertaking if it is not undertaking independent scrutiny of the financial actions and projections of the Government. Kezia Dugdale? Absolutely no one is being impressed by the plans that this Government has put forward for the Fiscal Commission. It wants independent knowledge and advice that it can rely on. I was going on to the issue of productivity and we can only achieve that with investment in skills, giving everyone a chance to change their lives and to have the opportunity of a second chance. This Government has cut colleges to pay for universities, so the solution can't be now to cut universities or schools to invest in colleges. We need a real debate about why it is that we view education as less of a spending priority in this country. I will turn to that in detail in a second. I want to say something about the Tory Government's trade union bill. None of us in this Scottish Parliament should be any in doubt about the intentions behind this bill. This Tory bill, supported by Ruth Davidson, has one intention and one intention only, and that is to undermine the rights and ability of working people to organise for better wages, terms and conditions in the workplace. The withdrawal of a person's labour is the most basic right that working people have, and its effective use over time has resulted in better wages, better health and safety standards, better pensions and, as a result, better public services and a better society. The ideologically driven bill is an attack on those hard-won rights, and it must be resisted and must be stopped. As such, on behalf of my party, I want to make clear to the Scottish Government that it will have our full support to do everything we can to stop this bill. Over the summer, I heard Rosanna Cunningham say that it is the prerogative of Scottish ministers to decide on issues such as check-off and facility time. She is right. The Tory's arguments against check-off and facility time are rooted in logistics, practicalities and costs. They are issues of public administration, not industrial relations, and are therefore clearly devolved, so the Government will have our full support in saying no to the trade union bill. Likewise, the Government would have our support for demanding a legislative consent motion. That way, the Tories would need approval from this Parliament to act, approval that they are not going to get from these benches. We do not just want to support this Government's rhetoric on the trade union bill. We want to support some real action now to stop this bill. Today, as always, the case when the Government sets out its programme for the year, we have seen many eye-catching and very worthy announcements, like the ones on the EMA, which, in reality, just reinstated a cut that the Scottish National Party Government made a few years ago. On issues such as kinship care, it was promised a long, long time ago by this Government, and now it is delivering on it. I am delighted, however, to see the announcement around MND and communications aids for people who suffer from MND, and I am delighted that Gordon Neckman is in the gallery today to hear that announcement. The First Minister and I both visited the Anne Rowling Centre last week. In fact, we both donated our voices to the nation, as if people had not heard enough from us already, but I am sure that she will have been persuaded and blown away by the incredible technological advances at the Anne Rowling Centre. Through the science and innovation of academics in our universities here in the UK, we can now give people their voice back. When we take that breathtaking innovation and combine it with the beauty of our NHS, wonderful things are happening for people in the most incredible circumstances, and that must be welcomed. Likewise, I welcome the announcement today around the burial and cremation bill, which will bring a sense of peace and justice to those families affected by what happened at Mortonhall, many of which I know well and have worked with over the past few years of this parliamentary session. I know that that issue goes beyond Edinburgh and will be welcomed across the country. I also welcome the private tenancies bill. The First Minister knows that we have been arguing for action to control rent rises for months. Indeed, we tried to amend the First Minister's last housing bill to this end, and she voted against that several times. It is great that we finally see action on this, but, although the Government has prevarigated, rents have risen again. Had the SNP Government acted in 2013 when its last private sector review took place, the average Scottish renter in the private sector would have saved £150 a year already, so that is slow progress. However, what overrides all those individual spending announcements is the overall balance of spending in Scotland. It was Joe Biden who said, do not tell me what you value, show me your budget and I will tell you what you value. Scotland currently has public spending, which is £1,300 higher per person than the UK average. How successive budgets have chosen to invest in this money reveals our real national priorities. Today, the First Minister again says that education and health are priorities, but her Government's budgets have told a very different story. When the Labour Government established this Parliament, we spent a higher proportion of our budget on health and education than England. Today, we spend a smaller proportion of our budget on those priorities than England. Points well made in the editorial of the financial times today. At the start of devolution, spending on health was 16.5 per cent higher than the UK average. Today, we spend just 6.5 per cent more on health than the rest of the UK. I wonder if she would care to comment on those statistics. The share of the Scottish Government budget taken up by health in 2006-07 was 37.4 per cent. Today, it is 41.2 per cent. The facts stand for themselves, Presiding Officer. No, they do. Education 2 has become less of a priority over successive budgets. In 1999, I am happy to put those figures in the space, immediately after today's debate, in 1999, we spent £204 more per person than the UK average on education. Today, that has fallen to £18. Those budget decisions reflect huge issues about the future of our country, so we are disappointed to see the budget process truncated. This First Minister is the most powerful person who has ever sat in that chair. Not only does she have a majority in this Parliament, she has swept aside her opponents in our other Parliament. She has more powers than ever before and more are coming. Her party and her supporters dominate so many aspects of Scottish public life. I say to her today, you have the power and, if you have the political will, you have the money. If you have the courage to take the radical action that we need, to reform and to redistribute resources, you will have our support. It is time that all of us raise their ambitions for our country, for our politics and for ourselves. Last week, the Lib Dems and the Conservatives committed to using the new tax powers to ensure lower taxes, and they will have to set out what that would mean in terms of cuts. The other parties in this chamber will have to set out our priorities, too. I welcome this because it shows that Scottish politics is moving from a debate about what we can't do to talking about what we can do, what we will do. We are not powerless to act. Nothing is inevitable. We are the masters or, in this chamber, the mistresses of our own destiny, so let's build that fairer and more equal country together. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Let me start first by thanking the First Minister for Early Sight of our speech, and I welcome her and all MSPs back to the chamber after the summer break. Of course, Scottish politics didn't stop in this Parliament's absence. Indeed, it seems almost to have gathered pace. As the First Minister pointed out, the Scotland Bill is being pushed through Westminster, and I'm pleased that the new tax and welfare powers upon which we all support are being devolved are being advanced in line with the agreed timetable. I also will put on record my wholehearted backing for the introduction of a new living wage of £9 an hour across the United Kingdom, as announced by the chancellor in his summer budget. No doubt, the admission of a welcome in the First Minister's speech was simply accidental. We in this Parliament must turn our attention, however, to the powers over which we exercise full control, from the education of our children to the laws under which our justice system is run to the state of our national health service. Those powers are huge in scope. Over the next year, that must become the clear centre of our politics in Scotland. In short, it's time that this Government focused 100 per cent on the day job. Let me start with the part of today's statements that we welcome. On issues such as the baby ashes scandal and domestic abuse, both of which I have raised repeatedly in this chamber, we see welcome forward movement that will have Scottish Conservative support. I am pleased to see that our repeated and sustained calls for standardised assessments to be introduced in schools has been heeded. It is a massive U-turn, but a welcome one. It is simply wrong that parents across Scotland can see their child go all the way through primary school and halfway into high school without having any independent measure of how well they are doing. This failure of critical assessment cannot continue, we need to change and we need to go further still. This SNP Government has already withdrawn Scotland from two international tests on literacy and maths. The First Minister has said and I quote, we need reliable data to inform policy and I agree. That's why she should pull another U-turn and re-enter those international tests too. We need to measure ourselves against the rest of the world, so our children have the very best chance of success. The First Minister has already made it clear that she wants her administration to be judged on its educational record. I only wish that this single-minded purpose had come about a little earlier than eight long years after the SNP took sole control of the Scottish Government, because this is a Government that has presided over a fall in literacy standards. A Government that, between 2010 and 2013, has overseen a real-terms cut in education funding of 5 per cent. A Government that has cut college places by 140,000 at the altar of a university tuition fee policy that favours the better off. While we will take time on those benches to assess the ideas put forward by the First Minister in her statement this afternoon, we will do so with no little skepticism that this eight-year-old Government has the ideas and focus necessary to do the job. We will also propose a better alternative. As we see families continuing to move house to secure the golden ticket of a good catchment area, we will press the Scottish Government to free up head teachers to innovate so that every local school is one that you want to live near. There is nothing stopping schools in deprived areas from becoming beacons of excellence, and it begins with giving teachers, head teachers and communities the power to do it. In the meantime, it is clear that we need a renewed focus on reading and writing by ensuring that teacher training institutions prioritise literacy training. It is astonishing that some courses are allocating just 20 hours out of a four-year course to literacy teaching. That needs genuine change. We also need to ensure that schools work with parents so that reading is at the centre of both school life and of family life. If we turn to the Government's other legislative priorities, this party's view is that we continue to see a worrying trend towards centralisation and political control freakery. The Government higher education bill already in progress is quite simply an attack on academic freedom. It will enforce political control on academic institutions whose reputations have been built precisely because of their political independence. Quite why the SNP has decided to fight the very institutions that deliver massive added value to Scotland is beyond me, and the First Minister today, I ask her to reconsider those plans. Similarly, we will contest this Government's land reform bill as it is another move towards a liberal and centralising Government. We will campaign for a genuine fix for our failing police service. Armed officers, stop and search, the M9 tragedy, Police Scotland is struggling, and now, just two years after creating it, the SNP Government is forced to concede today that it needs reform. The creation of a few new committees simply won't cut it. We need local accountability restored to a service that, to much of the country, now feels utterly remote. If we turn to health, this party will support, we will support all moves to ensure that the NHS is properly funded, but it is also time to accept that money alone will not solve the NHS's problems. Doctors and nurses are telling us that politically driven targets are now hampering their attempts to provide patient care. We must listen to them before more nurses and doctors decide to leave NHS Scotland and pursue their careers elsewhere. We also need some clarity of thinking. We need to free up more money to recruit more nurses, and if that means that the better off, like those of us here in this chamber, should pay a contribution for our prescriptions, then so be it. As we prepare for more powers being devolved to this Parliament, I welcome the fact that the First Minister has turned her attention to the substantial welfare powers that she will soon be responsible for, but I would like to know how developed those preparations are. The First Minister used her speech to, unjustly in my view, attack the current work programme, which is the largest welfare to work programme in our nation's history, and is a programme that, in points of fact, has helped 38,510 long-term unemployed Scots. That is those who are furthest from the job market back into a long-term job. She says that she is working on a replacement, and what evidence can she provide to show us that her replacement will actually be ready by April 2017? For our part, my own party will promote our own proposals on welfare over the coming months. Our guiding principle will be to ensure that the welfare system helps people back into work, and in that, we will be helped by the sound economic foundations provided by the UK, which, since we came into government in 2010, has seen employment rise in Scotland by 174,000 and unemployment fall by 64,000. That shows just one benefit of our continued membership of the United Kingdom, the fastest-growing economy of the G7 last year. Over the next year, I will ensure that this party stays committed to what I believe are the priorities of most Scots, speaking up for those of us who want to see Scotland thrive within the United Kingdom, standing up for family finances that face ever greater pressure from the cost of living and insisting that huge powers that this Parliament has are used to ensure that we have better schools, a secure NHS, and an enterprise culture that makes us the best place to do business in Western Europe. It is time for a Scottish alternative to the SNP, and we are determined to provide it. Since we last met in this chamber, the chairman of the Scottish Police Authority has resigned, the chief constable of Police Scotland has resigned, and we witnessed the unfolding terrible aftermath of the tragic incident on the N9 motorway. A police officer told the BBC last week that Police Scotland is on its knees. I know that to be true from almost daily contact from police officers and civilian staff. They cite low morale and serious problems such as backfilling of civilian jobs by experienced but inappropriately trained police officers, excessive waiting times in call centres and control rooms, industrial scale stop and search, top-down targets and controls, and more near misses because of errors at Bilston Glen. The list goes on. One told me just yesterday that the reforms being put through by this Government are putting police and public in danger. Yet the justice secretary still thinks that it is appropriate to praise the soon-to-depart chief constable and tells us that he will leave a lasting positive legacy. In this document published today, only today, the First Minister's programme says this, the successful transition to the new single police service on 1 April 2013 has placed Scotland at the forefront of UK policing. I warned ministers before about the dangers of their plans, and I am warning them now that what they have announced today is simply not enough. This Government is denying reality. The reality is that Police Scotland is not at the forefront of UK policing, it is on its knees. We need an independent inquiry into the operations of Police Scotland. It needs to change before it gets any worse. We have also put forward proposals to reform the democratic architecture of the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland. As part of her review today of accountability in scrutiny, if she is prepared to listen this time, I will take her through our plans. They are reasonable and pragmatic and will inject local accountability back into the police. The code of conduct on stop-and-search is a step in the right direction, but all stop-and-search must be put on a statutory footing to bring an end to the industrial use of stop-and-search. However, the review of police as a whole is essential to restore the morale of staff and officers and the confidence of the public. We have other proposals, too, combining economic discipline with social justice. We want to create opportunity for everyone, no matter what their background. A pupil premium to help children who need a helping hand at school targets financial support to individual children across Scotland, not just in limited councils to provide support for extradition and resources. It is that personalised support that makes the difference to inequality. An expansion of nursery education and childcare, the best educational investment that we could make, last month, 15,000-year-olds skipped through the doors of their nursery for the first time. However, only after those benches pressed the Scottish Government to deliver this, that figure should be doubled. In England, the support is outstripping that available in Scotland, and that needs to change. A recruitment plan for GPs. Our survey of GPs in the summer found that one in three would not choose that career now if they had an opportunity to revisit the decision. So many are retiring early. Going part-time or potential new recruits are going elsewhere. Of the GPs who knew about the Government's plan, 99 per cent thought that it was inadequate. The Royal College of GPs have a blueprint. The Government should take it seriously. Parity for mental health treatment. One in four of us will have a mental health condition in our lifetime, but the treatment options are inadequate and involve long waits. Yesterday, I visited urban therapy in Crosshill in Fife. They are overwhelmed by people seeking counselling from a far-of-field as Glasgow. We all need parity for that service. On pupil testing and lead tables, the document that is published today says this, the clear purpose of this reporting and use of assessment data is to drive accountability throughout the Scottish education system. That includes school-level data that will lead to teaching to the test and every child put under unacceptable pressure to make the numbers look good. Despite what the First Minister says, it is clear that we are returning to the kind of testing and tables that the previous Liberal Democrat Labour Administration abolished. Nicola Sturgeon has been in government for over eight years. The problems with the police, the NHS and schools are not just problems for which she is a passive observer. This Parliament has been responsible for over 15 years. Nicola Sturgeon has been responsible for over eight years, and Nicola Sturgeon is responsible now. She mentions the future repeatedly in her speech. Perhaps the First Minister prefers to talk about the future because she cannot face up to her Government's past. I thank the First Minister for the advance copy of her statement today, and I assure her that the Greens will also look forward to working constructively on a number of the areas that she has outlined. The focus on inequality is something that she has spoken about on a number of occasions before, and if that continues to be an element of our Government's programme, we will certainly welcome it. We probably do not frame it in terms of economic growth as she does. We believe that inequality, as I am sure she does as well, is a bad thing in its own right, not just detrimental to what we regard as a short-term notion of economic growth. However, the living wage is something that she has asserted in the past. We think that there is more that could be done to promote the living wage. There is a wide range of business support services that the Scottish Government makes available, which are not currently contingent on applicants qualifying as living wage employers, and that is something that could drive uptake. However, there is going to have to be a recognition that, as a result of UK Government changes—not least on tax credits—a meaningful living wage is going to have to increase to ensure that people are not still living in poverty. I find it rather galling that Ruth Davidson seems to have expected some congratulation for the Tory Government from the First Minister for Mr Osborne's announcement. Perhaps the answer is that the First Minister, just like the rest of us, can notice a con when we see one, and that any worker who has successfully campaigned for a living wage in their own workplace has a right to feel insulted by the proposal that it will be replaced by a living wage that is lower than the one that exists today. That Government should see through that kind of con artistry, as I think most of this Parliament does as well. I want to welcome in particular the abolition of employment tribunal fees. That will be a very positive step. The reversal of the Scottish Government's previous opposition to rent controls. Rent controls are something that are long overdue. We have made that case for well over a year now. As have NUS, I have shelter and other organisations, and I look forward to seeing the detail of that. There are some areas in the programme where we may need to simply wait and see what the detail has to say. The commission on local tax reform, for example, which is due to report soon, is something that we have engaged with constructively, but we are going to have to wait and see what the Scottish Government has to say about its intentions for the way forward. Local democratic freedom, the ability for councils to decide to themselves how much revenue is right for them to raise and on what terms. That is going to have to be an important measure that we take forward. As for mitigation of the welfare cuts and agenda, which I think again we will share, the devil will be in the detail, and it will be for this Parliament with its increased range of powers to decide whether it is willing to raise the additional revenue that will be necessary if we are going to be successful in that agenda. The emphasis on education, which has come from both the Government and the Labour benches, is, I think, important. I suppose that my only concern here is that this simply becomes another political football, where the shared intentions between Government and main opposition party fall down the crack between a political division about whose statistics are correct or whose statistics are most meaningful. Instead of using or relying on its inbuilt majority, the Government is going to have to make a case for the specific proposition that it has in this area, and all opposition parties should listen to that case with an open mind. The Government's review on policing will be a welcome step, but, as Willie Rennie was indicating, there is a need to recognise a wider culture within Police Scotland that has been too controlling from the centre and that there is a deficit of local accountability that is inherent in the push toward a single police force to replace the previous forces that existed in Scotland. That is a circle that is going to be difficult to square. As well as that, I think that we need to have no patience in the future in this Parliament with answers from ministers saying that merely operational matters are being discussed when we are talking, for example, about the presence of weapons on our streets, when we are talking, for example, about the covert use of surveillance either in relation to journalism or peaceful political activism. These are not merely operational matters, they are deeply political, and if the Government wants to get to grips with that issue, then I will welcome it, but it remains to be seen. I do have to mention one or two negatives as well, though I was disappointed to see not a single mention of climate change in the First Minister's statement today or even the wider environmental agenda, despite the very serious challenge that exists not just globally in getting an agreement between Governments in Paris this year, but also here in Scotland, where the Scottish Government is yet to meet even one of its annual climate change targets more than five years after that legislation was passed. The issue is mentioned in the full programme for government document, tackling climate change, but I only need to turn one page to see a section headed investing in the oil and gas industry. Here we come to this long-standing contradiction between the Scottish Government's high-carbon, low-carbon, economic and energy strategy. We cannot have it both ways. Kez Dugdale mentioned the concept of a post-oil economy, preparing for the transition to a post-oil economy. I am happy to let Ms Dugdale know that Scottie Greene is well ahead of you, and I will happily send a copy of our report on jobs in the new economy to the Labour office. Finally, there was nothing in the statement or in the programme to give clarity from the Scottish Government on its position on fracking and the other forms of environmental threat that are coming from the fossil fuel industry. The moratorium must become a permanent ban, and its scope must be extended to include underground coal gasification. The First Minister says in her statement that she is setting out a long-term vision and agenda for the next Parliament. The SNP cannot go into the next election without giving voters clarity on what its intentions are in this most contentious area. We now move to open debate. Speeches of up to six minutes please, as we are very tight for time. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I am very positive about the programme that is put forward by Nicola Sturgeon, because it clearly builds on the achievements of the past four years, indeed prior to that. As always, it has a very holistic approach to things. It looks at the big picture as to how all the different elements of what our Government is responsible for and what this Parliament is responsible for scrutinising matches up to making Scotland the kind of country that we want it to be ambitious for its people and really just fighting for more powers for Scotland so that we can be more ambitious for people, but also delivering more powers for Scotland's communities. The main strands, as I outlined in the statement, I look forward to reading more of that programme, would be the economy, employment and fair work, welfare and housing, education and health, and democracy. I took offence to something that Kezia Dugdale said when she said that the Labour Government established this Parliament. No, it did not, the people of Scotland established this Parliament, and that is at the very, very root of democracy. So let's not hear any more of that rewriting history. It starts to get absolutely… I wonder if she could advise us how democratic it is for the Scottish Government to impose its position on local taxis on local government. Shouldn't it be up to local government to make those decisions? Mr Finlay has quite clearly not listened to anything that has been said about more powers for Scotland's communities, more powers for Scotland's people, so that they really can take decisions as to what affects them in daily life. That is what this Government is about if it would pay more attention to looking at the legislative programme and the Government that has gone on for the last eight years, he would realise it. Start getting a bit positive about how the Opposition can actually help delivering for Scotland instead of trying to pull Scotland down at every available opportunity. While we are at education, it is the big thing that is getting talked about just now. Again, Kezia Dugdale talked about education and the attainment gap and how Nicola Sturgeon has failed over the last eight years in making differences in deprived communities. Let me tell you, there have been decades of labour control in deprived communities right across our country. We inherited an attainment gap, we inherited areas of multiple deprivation that people in the Labour Party should be absolutely ashamed of presiding over for all that time. Help us make it better, admit the mistakes of the past, look at history and move forward to the future, because together we can actually make changes. Ruth Davidson outlined with education how she thought it could be done in deprived areas with headteachers having more responsibility etc. What I would say to Ruth Davidson is how about eradicating poverty instead of embedding it? That would make a difference. How about ensuring that people have enough to eat rather than normalising food banks? That would make a difference, because there is a fundamental fact here—hungry children find it more difficult to learn. I think that that is something that we can all agree on. I would ask Ruth Davidson to look down at what our Government is doing in Westminster and to join the rest of us in condemning what is happening there. The big picture of Scotland is that Scotland, the country, can be being ambitious for all its people. That is what I believe that Nicola Sturgeon and her Government are anxious to deliver. I have been looking at the programme on business, what is being done, small business bonus and then more for small and medium enterprises, which are the bedrock of business in our communities right across. I am looking at it as to how it can benefit my own community of East Kilbride, the town that I represent, the biggest town in Scotland, which has been suffering because of economic changes, because of austerity, because things have changed in terms of what kind of businesses are now there. I am glad to see that there is going to be a new initiative about manufacturing. I hope that I will be able to speak to the business team in the Scottish Government about how East Kilbride, through its task force, can start to capitalise on some of that. If she thinks that the introduction of the empty property tax has helped businesses in East Kilbride, I contend that it most certainly has not. I think, Presiding Officer, yet again we have people who will not look at the big picture and how we actually look at businesses in a whole, how it contributes and what is fair, because one thing that this Government does is looks at what is fair, whether it is in helping employers or fair work for employees. I am delighted that there will be strong opposition to the terrible things that Margaret Mitchell's Government is trying to do to workers' rights through the trade union bill. I see a running out of time very quickly, so much more to say. I hope that the Labour Party in opposition at Westminster will be totally opposed to what the Conservatives are trying to do with that. I hope that they will join with Scotland's main opposition party, the SNP, in fighting what is going on down there. Yes, Presiding Officer, I will finish by saying that let's look at the bigger picture of how the Conservative Government is damaging Scotland and look at how we can work with the SNP Government in Scotland to mitigate that and be positive for the future. The next eight months will see crucial decisions taken about our future, how we protect and make the best sustainable use of our land and seas, how we enable communities in urban and rural Scotland to tackle the environmental and social injustice that scars people's lives, and how we play our part in tackling the climate challenges that will destroy the livelihoods of millions across the globe. The Scottish Parliament should be proud of its record on land reform. Our 2003 act enabled communities in some of the remotest parts of Scotland to make better use of the land, create new jobs and new opportunities, and Scottish Labour supported the new powers in this year's Community Empowerment Act because we believed that it built on those achievements. It included urban areas and gave communities the chance of a greater say in the use of abandoned and neglected buildings and land. How that works in practice is critical, so we will be monitoring the new processes to ensure that they deliver for communities. However, there remain key areas of unfinished business, particularly in relation to sustainable development, which we will debate this autumn, and the recommendations of the land reform policy group and the many submissions that we've had from representatives across the country will be crucial. There are key issues that I hope we will all agree need to be delivered, such as clarity on the ownership of land. How can land be owned and yet there is no paper trail to find out who the owner is? The land reform bill gives us the opportunity to deliver greater transparency and, in committee, Scottish Labour will test the principles of the bill and the details in it too, working to ensure a decent deal for tenant farmers. There's much more the Scottish Government could be doing to tackle the challenges of climate change. I was disappointed and genuinely surprised that the issue did not even feature once in the First Minister's speech. With the Paris talks in December, we need radical action now, and yesterday's cross-party initiative by WWF saw all party leaders sign up for action, and the SNP Government, with a clear majority, can move ahead with radical action now, and they need to do it without delay. The Scottish Government is failing on EU air quality targets and has now missed four annual climate targets, and although we've made progress on renewables, there is so much more that can be done. For example, we need to see the Scottish Government's budget reflect new investment in greening our infrastructure in our buildings and transport networks. The proposed national energy infrastructure plan is long overdue, and we need to see new investment on community heat and power to give robust solutions for community and cooperative ways to move forward. Crucially, we need to retrofit homes to tackle the scandal of fuel poverty. It is not enough to build new affordable homes. We need to support the 39 per cent of Scottish households who live in fuel poverty, and the thousands in our rural communities who live in extreme fuel poverty. That is not a future challenge, it's a challenge now. Ian Gray's bus bill is one practical way in which we can invest to deliver sustainable public transport, support demand-led and community transport initiatives, and move the agenda forward. Will the Scottish Government now sign up to its provisions? Across the rest of the UK, local authorities are beginning to work together on franchising and supporting bus regulation across local authority boundaries, so why not hear in Scotland too? I'd like to know what the Scottish Government's view is on the new raft of city deals that are being agreed across the country. Will it be possible for new bus options to appear in them? That could be a practical way to tackle and deliver on sustainable transport. On Thursday, we're going to hear a statement from ministers on the future for people in Long Anett. It highlights the need for a practical transition now towards a greener energy future. We're losing jobs and expertise across the country and particularly down the east coast, from Aberdeen to Fife. Before more jobs are lost, we need to hear more about practical solutions, a practical transition for ministers. We've got to work with energy companies and communities now to ensure that vital skills and supply industries are not lost for the future. Throughout the summer, we've seen the dairy crisis continue. We've now reached a point where costs are cut and the pressure on payments continues to go below what is viable for farmers to produce milk. When water isn't more expensive than milk, surely something is seriously out of kilter. I welcome the Scottish Government's dairy action plan, but farmers need to see it delivered with a much greater sense of urgency, more transparency in the whole supply chain, investment in product diversification and support for the public and private sectors to actively source produce of Scottish provenance. We need that now more than ever. It's been a horrendous summer for our farming communities and the rural jobs that depend on them. The autumn will see yet more challenges, so can the Scottish Government confirm today that single farm payments will be processed and paid on time. Our producers and the rural jobs and industries that they support need that certainty. We need to know from the Scottish Government that it is focused on protecting and creating new jobs, whether it's in energy, in transport, in farming or food production, that it will use its budget to green our infrastructure to tackle fuel poverty now and to enable the Scottish Government to deliver on our climate targets and to deliver environmental justice for all. Before we came back to Parliament, I ran the emotional gauntlet of sending my daughter off for her first day at primary school. The tears were not flowing, but she has been keeping me up to date with all the things that she has been learning. It's helped me to focus in context my aspirations for her and from that my aspirations as a politician for the children of Scotland, because that is now both of my children into the education system. I want to ensure that we have an education system that is absolutely working for all the children who are within it. That's why I welcomed the extension of the attainment fund that took place over the summer, which will benefit from the funding of two schools in my constituency, Manor Park and Bramblebray. Manor Park and Bramblebray are schools that are doing a tremendous amount of work in communities of deprivation in Aberdeen, but, as has been highlighted and I've said in the chamber, there is a world outside of the school gates that affect the chances of children. Often, what we find is that the schools that the children attend are working against external factors, rather than being able to absolutely maximise the educational outcomes for our children. The work that is being done within our schools is vital, but that wraparound outside the school, many of those factors that lie out with the control of the Scottish Government, is important as well. Although I'll come on to talk a little bit more about some of those things. Also, the expansion of childcare in the early years is important and welcome, and the plans to go further, I think, will be of benefit not just to children but also to parents, who will be able to take the opportunity, should they choose to do so, to get back into the workforce at an earlier point than might otherwise have been the case. I welcomed the announcement that the energy jobs task force will be extended for six months, although that is obviously a bittersweet welcome, given that there are still pressures facing those working in the energy sector, many of whom are my constituents. Indeed, just recently, there were some regrettable announcements regarding helicopter pilot jobs. One of the things that has been raised with me is the difficulty for helicopter pilots in finding alternative employment, because there are not a lot of helicopter jobs available out there. The options and opportunities for reskilling those who find themselves in a position of redundancy is something that I hope that the energy jobs task force will be looking at as part of its work. That is support for a key sector within the north-east of Scotland, but there are other key sectors as well. Often, one of the issues that has been raised with me is that we do not always hear enough about the other sectors that exist within the north-east of Scotland. One of those is life sciences, and I welcome the fact that it will continue to be a focus of the Government's economic strategy. I visited a company in my constituency, Nova Biotics, over the summer, alongside the Minister for Mental Health, Health Improvement and Sport, Jamie Hepburn. They are developing and working on a treatment for cystic fibrosis and are doing some fantastic work. They are a spin-out company from the Routt Research Institute, and I think that those kind of spin-out life sciences companies are the kind of companies that we want to see being fostered and supported. I know that they are grateful for the support that the Scottish Government is giving to the life sciences sector. Beyond that, Presiding Officer, but within the energy sector, one of the decisions that I think needs to be probed quite seriously is the bizarre decision by the UK Government to apply the climate change levy to the renewable energy sector, a decision that seems absolutely and utterly without rhyme nor reason but has been taken nonetheless. That will do a significant amount of harm, I feel, to our attempts to diversify the energy sector within Scotland. In terms of the health sector and the improvements that have been made there, I believe that there have been improvements in terms of the health of our nation and the experience of people in accessing our NHS. As the First Minister highlighted, we now have a greater number of people waiting for a shorter period of time within the health service. That, by any measure, is improvement. I also welcome the moves in the primary care sector, and the health secretary and I have had a number of discussions regarding the issues around primary care and general practice, particularly some of the pressures that are being experienced within my constituency. I met local GPs recently who are looking at a local level around how primary care will be shaped and delivered. During the same day that the minister for health improvement was in my constituency, I visited the middle field and nurse practitioner-led service, which is delivering very strong support for a community of deprivation in my constituency. I believe that there are a number of ways in which the primary care sector can complement across disciplines in order to reduce some workload but also to improve patient experience and patient outcomes. I know that that is something that the cabinet secretary and I have spoken about, and I know that she is very keen to explore. On to the issue of social justice and improvement of living standards. I mentioned the factors that exist outside of the school gate, which affect children's life chances and children's educational outcomes. One of those is about income and the difficulties that many people have in communities in sustaining without the requirement for, for example, tax credits, which we know are about to come under significant attack from the UK Government. The living wage is crucial. The reason why it is called the real living wage and not the phony living wage that the Conservatives are putting forward is because it actually meets the standards of the living wage and has not just been a repackaging of the minimum wage, because we know that the £9 an hour that they trumpet will not be a living wage by the time it comes into force. That sort of work is important to ensure that living standards increase and to ensure that families have the best possible opportunities in our society. I welcome the programme for government, because it is ambitious for and about Scotland. I now call on Claire Baker to be followed by Fiona McLeod. Thank you, Presiding Officer. With the election on the horizon, this is a shorter year than is normal, but it is just as important that we use the time that we have to make some progress in a number of key areas. The First Minister has come forward today with a number of proposals. She talks about transferring power to local communities and community empowerment in the closing of her speech. That will be a challenge in terms of finance, capacity and sustainability in some communities, but the prize for that is great. We could see people engage much more in their communities, making decisions every day rather than just at the ballot box. I would like to touch briefly on land reform. It was previously recently revealed in private eye that 750,000 acres of land in Scotland, which is an area larger than the First Minister's home region of Ayrshire, is held in Tax Havens. Last year's programme for government, the First Minister said that her ambition for radical reform remains undiminished, but there have been areas where campaigners have been disappointed, including the lack of plans to tackle land held in Tax Havens. Reform of our land is an opportunity to change who holds power in Scotland. That should be a Parliament that challenges old consensus. Land reform is one of the great success stories of this young Parliament, but we can still be more ambitious. The Government was forced to redesign the land reform group after a week start, and the group did finally produce a report that had a host of recommendations that were designed to take the process forward. The Government has adopted a number of those in the legislation, but I hope that it will take another look at the plans to bar companies and offshore tax havens from holding title to land and property in Scotland. We need greater transparency within ownership. Unless action is taken, we will start to see the ridiculous situation in which Scotland will fall behind the rest of the UK. The Conservative Prime Minister has announced plans to publish a central public land registry of foreign companies that own land in England and Wales. There is a real need and desire to see the Scottish Government match at least this level of transparency. I would like to now talk about educational attainment, an issue that Kezia Dugdale has championed in this Parliament. There are still too many young people who leave school not achieving as much as they should have. Kezia Dugdale outlined some of the stark figures that we face in trying to address that. Last year, I visited Kirkland High School in Buckhaven in Meethill for the end-of-year show. Kirkland was a school of ambition, and that was a scheme that, along with cultural coordinators, was introduced by the last Labour-led executive, but both of them were brought to an end by the current Government. In 2014, I could still see the impact that those initiatives were having on the pupils, their teachers, their parents and their community as a whole. What I saw was engagement with the arts and culture from pupils who might otherwise struggle to have those experiences. They showed confidence, teamwork and had a great argument for why arts and creativity are so important. When we look at who is reaching the attainment levels that are needed for art colleges' acceptance or entry to the conservatoire, we see groups of young people for whom a career in the arts is just not possible because of a combination of financial constraints and lack of opportunity. The actor James McAvoy recently stepped into the debate, saying that, while no one detracts from the talent and success of actors who come from privileged backgrounds, we are worried about a society that does not give opportunities to everyone from every walk of life to get into the arts, and that is what is happening. There should be no profession where a talented child or young person, regardless of their family income or circumstances, should be excluded from. If we look forward to the coming months in Parliament, there are two further areas that I would like to consider, which are in the programme for government. An EU referendum is coming, and we must be fully engaged in that debate. So far, the focus has been on the process, but we need to move on to the actual meeting and substance of the debate. We cannot take the result in Scotland here for granted. Many in Scotland will not have made up their minds about the issue. We cannot yet see the shape of the campaign, but it will be another yes-no type campaign. There will be strong arguments put across the political and social spectrum that the EU does not work within Scotland's interests. People will argue about the political direction of the EU. The campaign against TTIP will be highlighted as a concern and concerns over business regulations. We must be, those of us in the chamber who support continued membership, must be ready to engage with those arguments and to meet the criticisms if we are to remain within the EU. The EU does need to change, but this reform must be achieved from within the EU, and membership is so important to our economy. The First Minister talked about international exports. Continuing membership is so crucial to all of that. I will close with some comments on the BBC. The First Minister talked about additional powers for Scotland. The Scottish Parliament and the Government will have greater power in the charter renewal process, but with power comes responsibility. The debate cannot be driven by political ideology nor must it be about settling old scores. We must choose our words carefully, refrain from threats and ultimatums and work towards securing a deal that works with the BBC and licence fee payers. It is important that we use the correct facts, and I was disappointed by Bill Kidd's motion last week, where he said that the BBC Scotland budget was between 30 and 35 million, despite the budget of the BBC Scotland being almost seven times that. It is not conducive to an honest debate about the future of the BBC to have misinformation around. The BBC has some great talent working here in Scotland, and it is a vital partner in developing the sector and the skills needed. We will have a more full discussion about this on Thursday. We must not lose sight of this during the charter renewal process, and that is why Scottish Labour wants to see investment from within the licence fee settlement, and we want to see the retention of the quota system for commissioning from nations and regions. On the issue of the BBC and the EU referendum, we must make sure that, during the months ahead, we work together where we agree and constructively where we don't. We should positively engage with the future of the EU and the BBC to take an inclusive approach that puts people, not politics, at the centre of those decisions. I would like to welcome the programme for government. There is so much in it that is so impressive, and to echo Linda Fabiani's comments about the positivity of it. It is good to hear that in a number, if not all, of the contributions this afternoon. The First Minister made much in her speech about attainment, and that is what I wish to concentrate my remarks on, most specifically, on literacy. Many of you in the chamber will probably expect the librarian in me wanting to take part in a debate on literacy, but actually this debate about literacy and closing the attainment gap is a debate about equality. It is a debate about equality in access to education. It is a debate about equality in access to health, because health literacy is proven to be part of being better in terms of health. It is also a debate on equality in terms of employment and therefore breaking down poverty. When we talk about literacy, we should talk about it from the earliest years all the way through to adulthood. The Standing Literacy Commission published its report in 2015. The Standing Literacy Commission set up by the Scottish Government was initially chaired by Sir Harry Burns when he was the chief medical officer, and that raised eyebrows at the time, but Sir Harry Burns can tell you absolutely clearly that literacy is a part, as I have said, about education, about health and about breaking poverty. The Scottish Literacy Commission makes it quite clear in some of the statistics that, in the world rankings, Scotland has a 99 per cent literacy level. That sounds marvellous, does it not? It puts us in something like the top 20 countries in the world, but, as the literacy commission also highlighted, it is the gap between those with high functioning literacy and those with poorly functioning literacy that is the biggest problem that faces us. The most recent SIMD surface has shown that that literacy gap is narrowing, and that is to be welcomed, but we must not stop there, as the First Minister said. Today, listening to the First Minister and to hear about the ambitions that the SNP Government has to close that literacy gap is so important, the First Minister told us about the attainment challenge, accompanied with the £100 million attainment challenge fund. She also talked about how we have moved from up to 600 hours per annum of early learning and childcare for all three and four-year-olds and many of our two-year-olds, and how our ambition, if we are elected to Government next year, is to move that to 1,140 hours. Now both members of the Opposition parties spoke about that in quite disparaging terms, and I would just like to, especially to Ms Dugdale, to say that I spent this summer travelling the length of this country from Dumfries to Inverness and also East and West looking at the challenges of delivering the 600 hours and how we have met them, and looking at how our local authorities in partnership with private nurseries and third sector nurseries are already planning and, in many cases, implementing the flexibility that our working parents need. I know that Ms Dugdale was otherwise involved this summer in an election while I was out touring the country, but we need to look at the facts before we disparage the work. I also very quickly highlight a couple of the areas where this Government is already working and already being evaluated as working well in trying to narrow the literacy gap. One of the delights for me is, and I do not know how many people know about Bookbug, four times in a child's life from birth to primary one, they will receive one of those bags filled with books, but it is not just about books and it is not just about reading. What we do when we work with our youngest children is we are working on attachment, we are working on relationships, we are working on emotional literacy, we are not just working with those young children but we are encouraging their parents and their carers to be part of that learning journey for those young people. A couple of other items that I really have to highlight because they are so exciting, the play talk read strategy that we have for our older children. If nobody has been on a play talk read bus, please, when one of the three buses comes to your constituency, go on the bus and see the delight of the children, the parents and the carers when they are playing, talking and reading. If they are not coming to your constituency, get in touch and find out how you can get them to come to your constituency. An allied initiative that we have is the NHS play at home, evaluated highly by QMU in 2011 and, of course, the recently announced read-write count. If nobody has seen the videos on the Government website about how you can use, go in for the messages to raise the literacy levels but also your attachment with your child, you really need to look at them, they are amazing. It is very clear that I have only got a few seconds left but I can conclude with all the many other things that I could have brought to your attention but I was just conscious in the book bug bag I came across a quote from Albert Einstein. If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales. I absolutely recommend that but certainly not the fairy tales that we heard from Ruth Davidson this afternoon. In closing, it is fun, creative and academically evaluated. Let's infect everyone with the enthusiasm across Scotland. Two weeks ago, when the First Minister told us boldly that her neck was on the line when it came to the attainment gap, there was a very welcome acceptance, I thought, that was one of the major educational challenges facing the Government. She spoke to about the successes that she saw, the fact that 500 new schools have been rebuilt and refurbished in 2007, that the numbers staying on in S6 and in meaningful school leaver destinations are increasing and notwithstanding some of the controversies over SQA in the summer, that there have been record passes at higher and advanced higher. When the First Minister talks about success in education, it is noticeable that most of the national measures that she uses to support that assertion are quantitative and they do not tell us much of anything at all about the overall qualitative changes in pupils learning. While there are and there always will be beacons of success with qualitative improvement in individual schools, quite frankly no one believes the First Minister when either she or her education secretary tells us that standards have risen and are continuing to rise. Why? Because of the fact that every educational expert in the land tells us that between one in five and one in six pupils is still leaving school functionally illiterate. Because of the most recent statistics that show that in many aspects of literacy and numeracy Scotland has gone backwards, and for me a very telling statistic that was used by the First Minister herself when she said that 69 per cent of schools are classified in school inspections as being good, very good and excellent. That means that 31 per cent of schools, which is approximately 210,000 pupils, are not in that category and that is a damning indictment. The First Minister has said on several occasions that she will listen to good ideas from other parties and maybe today's U-turn when it comes to testing is one of them, but there are others where we have met with a brick wall. So if she won't listen to the politicians, perhaps she will listen to the experts in education. To Keir Bloomer, when he Alanises the issues within literacy and numeracy and the attainment gap, while praising the First Minister for at last being prepared to grasp the large and difficult nettle, he makes the comment that when change is mooted by opposition parties it is rejected because it is not seen to promote egalitarianism. If new policies involve different organisations in schools, greater devolution to head teachers and more choice to parents, they are dismissed because of the mistaken belief that egalitarianism and uniformity are the same thing. Or Sue Ellis, who argues very convincingly that not only is there a significant lack of meaningful data, which the First Minister has addressed this afternoon, but also an absence of a consistent approach when it comes to following the child through the school, something that my colleague Mary Scanlon also indicated at the time of the Audit Scotland inquiry. Those experts make very clear that advice to teachers is very weak, and Sue Ruth Davidson is quite right when she focuses on teacher training and on the fact that there are fewer hours devoted to literacy and numeracy teaching in Scotland compared with England. The Scottish Government is rightly very keen to stress the importance of the early years, and they can take some credit for some pioneering work that has been done across Scotland. However, that effort will be compromised for as long as too many families are finding it difficult, or in some cases are actually prevented from accessing good quality and flexible childcare. Twice in this chamber, we debated the evidence provided by fair funding for our kids, who argued, and I quote, for many children and working parents, that the system is simply not delivering the model of childcare that matches the needs of modern working families. The evidence that was provided by Reform Scotland, who flagged up the inherent unfairness within a nursery system that prevents approximately half of children in Scotland from receiving the same entitlement just because they happened to be born in the wrong month. The First Minister made a welcome announcement about the discrimination that was affecting kinship carers, so perhaps the First Minister could turn her attention to the discrimination within the nursery provision. At the other end of the scale, we know exactly what is happening to colleges, despite their extraordinary collective efforts to provide a top-class education, greater accessibility and more support for those often furthest from the labour market. They have seen their real-term funding cut, they have seen substantial cuts in college places, they have seen lecture numbers decrease, and they have had to undergo very serious financial pressures on their reserves because of ONS classification. However, we know that the FE sector is not alone, because the HE sector is now facing exactly the same threat, all because the Scottish Government wants to exert more control over the running of our universities. They proclaim that they want to do that because they allege that there is insufficient transparency within university governance and insufficient accountability for the public money that underpins what they spend. I have tried several times before, and I will try again this afternoon, to ask the Scottish Government for one shred of evidence to prove that the existing system of university governance is in some way undermining the educational experience or holding back universities as they compete internationally. The fact of the matter is that the HE bill is a mess, and it is politically driven, and it has so many technical problems in it that it will need radical change if not have to be abolished altogether. First Minister, Ruth Davidson made it plain earlier this afternoon that this party will very strongly support anything that can reduce the attainment gap and can provide effective testing, but what we cannot accept and what the public is really struggling to understand is why the SNP has become obsessed with university governance when no problem exists, forcing named persons on all children under 18 when it is quite clear that the vast majority of parents do not either want or need a named person, while they are obsessed with attacking colleges and refusing to budge when parents demand that the date of a child's birthday should not determine the provision of nursery. First Minister, I know not in the chamber, but I do hope that you will listen to what is being said. Is it not time to do more U-turns so that we really deliver on what matters? Thanks very much. We are now calling Rob Gibson to be followed by Ken Macintosh. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It is an exciting Government programme that we are debating today in this final session of this term. I see in my responsibilities that land reform is central to the quest for fairness and equality, and building a sustainable Scotland is one of our core purposes. To quote Eric Schumacher in Small is Beautiful, among material resources the greatest unquestionably is the land. Study how a society uses its land and you can come to a pretty reliable conclusions as to what its future will be. That is exactly what we will be doing in the Rural Affairs, Climate Change and Environment Committee. We will be building on the acts of 2003 on land reform and the Community Empowerment Act of past this June. I have read most of the 200 submissions to the Rural Affairs Committee for this land reform bill, and it takes many points from many different aspects. I hope that over the next three months we will hear those and come to our conclusions about the best ways forward for land reform. We are trying to see that the encouraging and supporting of responsible and diverse land ownership is one of the key issues, as is addressing fairness, equality and social justice, connected to ownership of access to and use of land in Scotland. However, two areas of the issue have been raised by other members and indeed by the public at this stage. I want to comment on those. They follow on from issues in the land reform review group report. One is about non-EU land ownership in Scotland, and the other is about human rights. I am surprised that the Opposition has not seen the explanations of why the bill does not include at this stage non-EU-based legal entities being banned, because the NFU in Scotland has told its members that the Scottish Government considers that this would not achieve the policy objective, as it would still allow the use of complex corporate structures and trusts to obscure how land is owned and managed in Scotland. Therefore, the Scottish Government intends to bring forward regulations that make powers to require disclosure of certain information on a proprietor or tenant in Scotland. That will be done on a case-by-case basis, in which it can be demonstrated that lack of information can be shown to have an adverse effect. That being so, we will look at those things in great detail in our committee. On human rights, because ECHR is included in the Scotland act, I have turned to the final words of Kirstine Shields in the Green Scottish human rights journal when she says on this matter, if the body of ECHR law is incorporated appropriately, the land reform debate offers an opportunity to rescue rights from their misrepresentation and to re-establish the ECHR as an institution that responds to the prevailing needs of societies and aligns state power to address those needs. ECHR is not about property rights and landlords' rights, it is about human rights, and we intend to investigate that in great detail. However, turning to another wider issue that is encompassed in Europe in much broader than that, the approach of the Paris land, the climate change conference, requires us to reflect on the bigger picture as far as affects the way in which this Scottish Government can act. I turn to the example in July. The French Government announced a package of measures that would turn around its energy production. In short, it would see a greater emphasis and investment on renewable energy and a cut on the reliance on nuclear. Contrast that with the UK Conservative Government, which now seems to be clearly waging an all-out war on renewables. What are we seeing develop is a tale of two Governments, not just the French and UK Governments, but the Government in London and the Government in Scotland. Therefore, communities, businesses and environment should benefit and most certainly are going to be hit most by those changes from London. I will take an intervention. I am grateful to the member for giving way. I agree with his criticism of the UK Government's recent energy announcements, but what we are looking at here is the Scottish Government's programme for government in this final year. After four missed climate change targets, does the member know why we have not had any new policy announcements today intended to get us back on track? Ron Gibson? Targets are one thing, but the trajectory of change towards achieving our goals is on target. The First Minister and the Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing, have pointed out that it is anti-business to stop us actually developing one of the things that helps us most to achieve our climate targets. That is renewable energy. That is what the Conservatives are doing to us at the moment, potentially costing around £3 billion of investment and risking perhaps 5,000 jobs. Yes, through trajectory is correct, we proved that. The targets as such, no thank you, I do not want any intervention from people who have only just found out that climate change exists. Last June, the UK Climate Change Committee published a sobering report on what the realities of climate change will bring. Those included in pieces of flooding and rising temperatures. That would cause dangers to our way of life and the loss of some of our best farmland. Therefore, it is an attack on renewable energy that we are up against and which we have to fight against. Indeed, this December, the climate summit in Paris will wonder why a British Government is going there and arguing exactly the opposite, and why the Scottish Government's hands are too tied at the moment of our energy policy and climate change policy to succeed. I hope that you and your colleagues enjoyed a slightly more relaxing and successful summer than perhaps all of us in the chamber. If I may put this as objectively as I can and without meaning to sound envious in any way, I think that it is fair to say that the SNP— One moment, can we—that is better. I think that it is fair to say that the SNP Government is in a very strong position at the moment. We will change your mind shortly. An absolute majority here in the Scottish Parliament riding high in the polls and with the First Minister very much in her political honeymoon. If ever there was a time for this Government to do something different, to push for real change or to be bold and radical, this is it. These moments do not come along that often. If I think back to the last time, perhaps my party enjoyed such a position of political strength that was probably 1999. That term was marked by notable successes and achievements, a huge expansion of nursery and higher education, the restoration of public services, investment in teachers and health workers pay, the school buildings programme, the introduction of free personal care. Even if we recognise that there was a different financial climate, it was also marked by landmark legislative success such as the Land Reform Act, the abolition of feudal tenure, the smoking ban, the abolition of sex 28, the Adults Within Capacity Act. I could go on, but if I am being entirely honest, I am not sure that today's announcement of a vision for the next decade does stand comparison. I noticed that the First Minister used the word bold in trailing the programme for government, but although there are several announcements that we will welcome, it feels more worthy than inspired. Yes, I welcome announcements on tackling educational attainment, for example, or housing, but they feel like an attempt to correct past mistakes, to put right some of the poorer decisions taken over the last eight years rather than stepping out in a new direction. I am also unsure as to how the Government's stated plans for the next few years sit alongside day-to-day reality for most Scots. When you ask local people in my area about public services, for example, they will give you a list of issues they are wrestling with, selling off the last publicly-owned care home in the area, trying to find ways to prevent the local dementia service support from being reduced, getting rid of school librarians, closing a centre for people with additional needs, fighting for an even semi-decent public transport connection to our hospital, long waits for hospital treatment. As colleagues will recognise, in the majority of the examples that I have listed, local government is at the sharp end of most of those political decisions. However, there is very little in today's programme for government that offers much in the way of comfort. When you ask any colleagues from local government what they want this administration to address, what they want to hear today from the programme for government, the overwhelming response is to identify local government finance. It is unsustainable to continue to cut central government grant to our local authorities while also underfunding a centrally-imposed council tax freeze. Scottish Labour has been working with the commission on local taxation to come up with a sustainable long-term solution. We await that report to be published in the autumn with interest, but none of that stops the Scottish Government from sending out a strong and clear message now about their direction of travel, about their trajectory, if I may put it that way, Mr Gibson. It is also directly contradictory to talk about transferring more power to our communities whilst emasculating our local authorities when it comes to exercising any kind of fiscal responsibility. Yes, there is reference to the Community Empowerment Act, which Labour fully supported and supports and which we are similarly looking forward to possible legislation for our islands, but those are quite specific examples that stand out almost because they are exceptions. I know that the First Minister and her colleagues are sensitive to the accusation that this is a centralising and overly controlling administration and that we are in danger of living in a one-party state. Surely, this is the perfect opportunity to rebut that charge. Council colleagues are willing to stand up and to take the tough decisions that need to be taken, but they need to feel that they have the support of Government ministers, not worry that they are to be blamed by them. If alongside my worries about local Government and the future of public services, of all the areas where I was looking for a bold and ambitious plan for this Government, housing was probably top of my list. ScareCell week has gone by this summer without further evidence or a new report highlighting the housing problems that are facing so many Scots. Just last month, the proportion of Scots owning their own home hit a 15-year low, whilst the number of renting privately hit a 15-year high. In fact, the amount paid in rent by tenants and private lets is at an all-time high. People are either paying too much, living in inadequate accommodation, or both. We urgently need to build more homes and we need to build more homes for social rent in particular. Again, there is announcement in today's programme that you are to be welcomed, but it lacks detail and, in fact, it is very difficult to describe the sum total as bold or ambitious. On planning, for example, I welcomed the announcement of a Ruthan Branch review, but the First Minister has simply stated that the intention of the review is to help to deliver more homes, and that scarsely does justice to the complexity of the issue. I would welcome further information on that point. At the moment, the number of local planning decisions overruled by the Scottish Government has, unfortunately, had the effect of undermining confidence in the whole system. There will be many like me who want the idea of a housing fund to address the specific needs of rural communities, but can I ask— You are in your last 30 seconds. Even an indication of how much that fund will amount to. Can I also ask whether it is a fund solely for new-built homes or will people be able to access it to address the pressing needs of fuel poverty? It helped to buy a scheme too, so it should continue. I am glad that it will announce it over the next three years. I can tell you and the chamber that Labour will bring forward housing as our first subject for debate in the new session. I hope that we can agree on a genuine ambition for our country that all Scots can enjoy the benefit of a warm, secure and affordable home wherever they live in this country. I want to put on record my regard for Chief Constable Sir Stephen House for his service, particularly in the two years since the inception of Police Scotland, and do not underestimate his commitment to the service. Not that he would always have known it because he had sometimes, unrightly, a rough ride from the policing committee, which I chair, as indeed did Vic Emery. However, it was a tough task against a tight timescale—eight constabilaries into one, eight cultures into one, together with substantial savings required because of cuts to the budget. The spotlight on Police Scotland is, as never before, with Her Majesty's Inspectorate, the policing committee here, Audit Scotland, Opposition, quite rightly, and the press. Sadly, to some extent, it has gone too far politicising policing, because I think that Willie Rennie does a disservice to his party as well as the police by over-egging the pudding. Chairing the police committee, I have a handful of emails concerning the establishment of Police Scotland and only one campaigning of delivery of the service from someone in my constituency. It is not that I am not looking for it, that is all I have had. It is not the talk of the steamy. So, the doom and gloom that Willie Rennie had today and has before does a disservice more particularly to our front-line officers, delivering drops in night crime, fear of crime, the perception of it even at an all-time low. Yes, there have been mistakes with Police Scotland, and I think more particularly with the SPA. Yes, we need rebalancing, but to say that Police Scotland on its knees is a complete nonsense. Recall, necessity here was a mother invention. Swinging cuts to our budget, rather than lose the 17,000 front-line officers that it had to do in England, we retained police numbers. $11 million still requires to be culled from that budget. I say to the Opposition members here that I know that they have only got one of each at Westminster, but over $40 million in vac receipts is retained from Police Scotland and the Fire and Rescue Service, and it could come back here and it would cover those cuts. The exemption is in Northern Ireland. The exemption is to the Olympic Legacy Committee that started out as a London charity, but it has been extended to them. So, I would ask them to say to their colleagues at Westminster, this is an injustice to the Police Service and the Fire and Rescue Service of Scotland. But there are issues for Police Scotland remaining, and I think the Government has recognised it, because one man was not the fault or two men were not the fault. Scrutiny, the SPA, no doubt, lost its way, did not seem to know what it was to be doing. I welcome the fact that this is going to be reviewed. I do think that it is essential that there is a re-balancing between national and local priorities and in the perception of that. Accountability appears to have shifted too far to the centre and I welcome it coming back. Although, as the First Minister says, access to major facilities is nationwide now. If you need a helicopter because somebody has gone missing in the borders or in the Highlands and Islands, you will get it as a matter of necessity, not because you have to put in a bit of paper and make a request. So, the facilities available are much better. HMIC, I am glad that it is doing a review of call handling. I regret the fact that it has, to some extent, got preceded by the recent tragic events on the M9, but we must not pre-empt that review. We do not know what went wrong there, so I am really loath to make comment until we have the facts before us. I am glad that there will be a statutory code of practice on stop and search, perhaps with some clarity on this, because sometimes young people are stopped in search because it is a child protection issue. They may be carrying drugs or alcohol and the police are doing it for their own safety. If they are searching a buggy or a pushchair or a pram, it may be because the adult has secreted the offensive item in that pram or pushchair, so it is not a black and white issue. That is why I would require statutory guidance. I would also say that the focus on community justice, which the Justice Committee began today in the bill, is very important. It sounds like a strange and drab thing, but it is to do with stopping re-offending. Re-offending is bad for society, it is bad for the victims, it is bad for the people who are involved, it is bad for their families and it costs an arm and a leg. I am very glad that we are doing that. Finally, on to the issue of the abusive behaviour and sexual harm bill, it is very important to bring us into line with the movements and technology. People are unaware that, later on, they can be blackmailed or humiliated by revenge, what we might call revenge porn, private images. We must put a stop to that, and that is something that every member would welcome. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Thank you. I call Neil Findlay to go for a call by Kevin Stewart. Thanks, Presiding Officer. I unequivocally support our public services. I have been worked in housing and education and been a councillor for nine years. I have seen how high-quality services change people's lives for the better. However, what we see at the moment is our public services under pressure like never before. In the NHS problems pile higher and higher each day. We see more GPs closing their doors to new patients, hospitals, relying on bank and agency and private sector staff. At St John's hospital—I am glad that the local constituency members are here—and the health secretary at St John's hospital, we know over the summer that the children's ward had to close its 24-7 inpatient service again. In Lothian, one in seven hospital beds are taken up by people well enough to go home and could go home if the social care system could cope with them—one in seven beds. In local government, the front line in the fight against poverty and inequality, we see budgets not being cut to the bone. We are way past the bone. We are now deep and hard into the marrow, and the impact of that is all too evident on our communities. Jobs loss, roads and environmental decline, community education cuts, support for the elderly and disabled services reduced. We see bus fares rising and schools with fewer materials and support staff and housing budgets cut. Mullen Council West Lothian, UK Council of the Year in 2006, has had to cut £89 million from its budget at the same time as that has happened. We are supposed to go on and cheer as a centralised Government dictates that councils have to reward the well-off most with a freeze in local taxes. You cannot claim to oppose austerity and its consequences with such a regressive approach to local government. In education, it appears that, after eight years of Scottish Government, it has realised that there is an attainment gap in education. Of course, if you remove classroom assistance, if you cut teaching equipment budgets, if you cannot get an appointment with an educational psychologist, if as a child you return home where your mum or dad or brother or sister cannot access mental health support or drug or alcohol counselling, if you are a young carer or a child in care and social work and education budgets are slashed, is it any wonder that the education attainment gap widens? Of course, for many young people who want to bridge the attainment gap after leaving school, college is their destination yet here we see fewer staff, reduced teaching time, student support cut and over 100,000 places lost. That is not the way to reduce the attainment gap. If we are serious about addressing inequality, then we have to be serious about redistributing wealth and power. If we fail to levy or collect taxes, if we provide tax cuts or freezes for the rich whilst the poor are forced to attend food banks, then you will never address Scotland's real shame of inequality. The educational attainment gap is a manifestation of that inequality. Of course, we know that the Tory Government exists to make the country more equal. The growing gulf between rich and poor is meant to happen. That is what is meant to happen under their system of austerity. They absolutely practice redistribution. Of course they do, but it is redistribution from the poor to the rich and they attack anyone who challenges that agenda. That is why they have brought forward the trade union bill, an unprecedented attack on the right to organise in the workplace. Trade unions exist to fight for better wages, health and safety, pensions, gender and equality. That bill wants us to return to the 18th century master and servant view of industrial relations, where corporate power is entrenched by a legal system that prevents collective organisation. No worker ever goes in strike lightly. The staff at the museum, who were out for a whole week last week because of inactivity and bringing an end to that dispute, did not take that option lightly, but there was no mention of that in the First Minister's speech. However, I hope that the Leader of the Conservative Party will join with the First Minister and the Leader of the Labour Party in agreeing to oppose the trade union bill at Westminster. I will certainly give way to her just now if she wants to confirm that. Absolutely no chance, I did not think so. I hope that we in this chamber will put aside our differences to defeat what is simply an offensive, bigoted, politically sectarian and nasty piece of legislation. We will work with anyone who is serious about opposing this bill and preventing its implementation across the UK. Can I commend the Government for agreeing with us to end the charging of employment tribunal fees? That is a very welcome announcement. Finally, I am pleased to see that two years after the Government took over my lobbying transparency Scotland bill, we now have legislation coming forward, although I sense that it is done with little enthusiasm. In recent cases involving INEOS, the Government's relations with Qatar— You are ringing last half the second. Yes. Tain the park and, of course, the First Minister's recent New York rendezvous with Mr Murdoch and the moves by a number of political operators with influential contact lists into the public affairs sector shows why we need a robust lobbying register that shines a light on our democracy. I look forward to discussing all those issues in the weeks and months ahead. Thank you, Mr Findlay. The next four speakers—I am afraid that I will have to cut to five minutes. That is Kevin Stewart, followed by James Kelly. One of the things that I always do during the course of the debates on a programme for government is to look at exactly how that programme is likely to affect the people of Aberdeen central who I represent. At this moment in time, there is some worry about the downturn in the oil and gas sector. One of the first things that the First Minister said today is that the Government will continue to support the oil and gas industry, and I am really pleased that our energy jobs task force has been extended for a further six months. I also hope that the Government will continue to lobby the UK Government to ensure that we get an exploration tax credit, which I am convinced will lead to more discoveries such as the Collane discovery, which was given the go-ahead this week. We will continue to ensure job security for people in the oil and gas sector. The other things that jump out at me from this programme for government is the establishment of that £40 million growth fund for small and medium-sized enterprises. As I went around my constituency during the course of recess, I visited a number of businesses, including Woe for You and Rose Mount, thanks to the Federation of Small Businesses. What I have heard from folks is that there is often a difficulty in getting finance from banks still at this moment in time. I think that this growth fund will be welcomed by businesses in Aberdeen and throughout Scotland. One of the things that I have asked for is for the Government to look at housing. Private rented sector in Aberdeen is very expensive indeed. I am pleased that the Government has put money into social housing. The housing minister opened Spencer court in my constituency during the course of the summer. There has also been money put into Craig Inch's housing for key workers, which is extremely welcome. I think that we need to look at rent controls. I am pleased that the Government has announced that the bill that it is bringing forward will include provisions for rent controls and rent pressure areas. That will be very welcome indeed in my constituency and beyond. One of the key statements that the First Minister made was that we will do everything that we can to mitigate welfare cuts and restore dignity to our social security system. That dignity aspect is very important indeed because what we have seen is Tory attacks on the most vulnerable and the poorest in our society. That is an absolute disgrace as far as I am concerned. However, it is not only those folks and benefits that we have seen over the course of the summer since George Osborne's budget, an attack on the working poor of this country. The withdrawal of taxed credits to 197,200 families in Scotland with a total of 346,000 children affected is absolutely shameful as far as I am concerned. It is our children that are paying a particularly heavy price for this right-wing Tory ideology. That, I am afraid, is something that we are going to have to bear but we will continue to fight against. The attainment fund, as many have already spoken about, will benefit riverbank school in my constituency. However, if we are truly serious about bridging the gulf in attainment, not only are we going to have to invest in education, we are going to have to change the way that we deal with poverty in this country. The only way that we can defeat that, in my opinion, is for all powers, over taxation and welfare, to come to this Parliament so that we can ensure that our children have a brighter future. The challenge for any Government in bringing forward their programme is to promote economic growth, ensure that we have a strong and secure health service, provide opportunities in education and ensure adequate local government funding so that we can protect communities. Whereas there are aspects of the programme that are welcome, like the proposed introduction of rent controls, I do submit that the approach of the SNP Government undermines its ability to tackle some of the fundamental issues that we need to address in Scottish communities. It seems to me that the Government has a problem at times in taking responsibility for some of its actions in devolved areas, so that when we see at the weekend that NHS Lanarkshire has a shortage in staff of unfilmed positions of 130, an official is put up as a spokesman in response to that. Also, in relation to Police Scotland and some of the incidents that we have had over the summer, the Government has not wanted to speak out on those issues. It is almost as if it wanted to separate it. Patrick Harvie is correct when he says that the number of times that we have heard Government ministers answer questions and say that that is an operational matter, how many times have you seen that portfolio question time? It is almost as if you know that I am a Government minister. You do not expect me to answer questions about things that I have got. No, I will not give way about things that I am responsible for. The other thing that I would submit is that over the course of this five-year period in which the Government has been in power, there has been too much emphasis on the constitution and not enough on the issues that are affecting people in our local areas. There has also been a tendency to blame others rather than take responsibility. Unfortunately, that means that some of the fundamental issues have not been addressed. I agree with Kevin Stewart that, when you look at the programme, you look at how it affects your constituency, and I will look at how some of those issues are affecting my constituency. One of the issues that came up over the summer was a shortage of GPs in my constituency. When you look at the figures, there was a GP practice to cover every 5,080 patients in 1999, but that has now gone up to 5,668. The position has deteriorated by nearly 600, and you wonder why that happened. Again, you look at the figures, you look for the evidence and you find that investment in GP funding has been cut by £1 billion since 2006. There has also been a 5 per cent cut in support for medical students, and it is no wonder that we have a shortage of GPs. No, I will not give way. I agree with a lot of what Neil Findlay said about local government. Again, you see the impact of that in our local areas. In South Lanarkshire Council, there is a £23 million shortfall in the budget. That means that cuts have been made in third sector grants and the cost of community alarms has doubled. If you look at it, I will take an intervention. Maybe James Kelly would like to explain to this chamber why South Lanarkshire has to make such cuts to their budget. Maybe it is up to do with the fact that they have to pay £72 million to the women that they have consistently underpaid over 20 years. The Government's allocation to South Lanarkshire Council over a three-year period has been reduced by £80 million. I invite MSPs such as Ms McKelvie, who spend much of their time criticising the local council. When it comes to the budget discussions in February, bring forward a proposal to properly fund local government. Your last 30 seconds, Mr Kelly. I would appeal to the Government time to take some responsibility. If you really want to deliver for Scotland, use the powers at your disposal to change people's lives and stand up for people throughout Scotland. Stewart Stevenson, followed by Jackson Carlaw. Five minutes, gentlemen. Presiding Officer, let me join others in congratulating the First Minister and all the Government team on an excellent programme for a stronger Scotland, in particular supporting many of the social ills that there are in our society. A number of particular things in today's speech from the First Minister in the Government's programme that I want to touch on. Let me start on food and drink, which is a very important issue for my constituency and for employment in my constituency. We are the home of excellent beef and lamb, and of course fishing is a very strong industry in the north-east of Scotland. We have seen oil-seed rape move from a commodity simply to put nitrogen back in the soils, to delivering first-class extra virgin oil-seed rape oil that is used in the best kitchens across these islands and beyond. We see that the north-east of Scotland is becoming a centre for Europe for garlic production. It is being exported to France. We are innovating. We are continuing to improve. However, there are challenges for the industry, and I hope that in the support, particularly through funding for small and medium-sized enterprises, the Government will look at how we can improve branding for small and medium-sized enterprises in the food and drink industry. Some of the recent troubles that there have been in the fish processing industry in my constituency are based on an inability of even quite large firms to control their own destiny to an adequate extent. They do not own the brands. They are doing work for others on short-term contracts, and when the contract moves, that can have devastating effects. They also do not control the sources of supply of the raw material for many of the products that they produce, and I would like to think that we can see the Government giving support through the enterprise agencies to companies to develop branding and to develop more robust channels of supply of raw materials. We produce some of the best food and drink in the world, but we can do more and we need more support. The Government has also said that it is going to look at the planning system, and that can touch on the subject of food and drink as well. When we grant planning consent, be it local government level or by the Government, we are granting a privilege to commercial companies that apply for planning consent. In exchange for that planning consent, we perhaps should be more ambitious in what we seek to get in return. In relation to planning consent for supermarkets, which are heavily controlling the food and drink sector, we should perhaps look at whether we can have planning consent conditions as part of national policy that is implemented by local councils and elsewhere that requires local sourcing. Under European law, that is likely to mean within Europe, but equally we can say that it must be from small and medium-sized enterprises to create the opportunity for those companies to grow through the operation of the planning system perhaps in a slightly different way. Let me finally talk on the subject of digital infrastructure, which the A Stronger Scotland document talks about to some degree. Our week away of a recess was in Plopton. It was an absolute delight. We had six-megabit broadband in Plopton. It was a town with an airport and a railway station. These are three things that I do not have at home. We even had a 2G phone signal, which I do not have at home. The UK Government, of course, in its programme for new masks and new coverage for phones, has not done terribly well, not in single new masks in Scotland. I hope that the excellent results for seeing and delivering better broadband across the Highlands become to a point of near universality. For those of us, like myself, who cannot be connected because of the line between me and the exchange to superfast broadband, I hope that we will see some priority given to the development and implementation of solutions for rural dwellers such as ourselves on exchange-only lines. We are making terrific progress. We are ahead of where we might have expected to be some time ago. It is an excellent programme. I commend it to everyone here in the Parliament. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It has been mentioned a few times this afternoon that this is a Government that has been going on for eight to nine years. That is longer than the wartime coalition of Asquith and Lloyd George or the Administrations of MacDonald or Baldwin or the national government that followed it. It is longer than Chamberlain's administration or the coalition that saw us through the Second World War. It is longer than the great reforming administration of Clement Attlee. It is longer than Harald Wilson's Government. It is longer than Edward Heath's Government. In fact, only the Administrations embarked upon on the 50s by Churchill, by Thatcher and by Blair lasted longer. Yet, we are told that this is a Government that has laid the foundations for the coming decade and set out a bold vision for the next 10 years. Is this a Government whose performance is matched either by its rhetoric or its longevity? Yes, some will say. In the speeches of Linda Fabiani, Mark Macdonald, Fiona McLeod, Rob Gibson, Kevin Stewart and Stuart Stevenson, we saw the evidence of that 600-year-old monk that you can fool some of the people all of the time. You can even, at the moment, it seems in electoral terms, fool most of the people some of the time. However, this Government will not fool all of the people all of the time. In its record, on education, on policing and increasingly on health, it is our administration that is failing Scotland and failing the very services that were dissolved to this Parliament. I am going to talk specifically about health and what was not in the programme that the First Minister announced this afternoon. On Thursday, the Advocate General of the European Court of Justice will give his opinion on minimum unit pricing. I will not go any further, other than to say that I hope that this Government will come to the chamber immediately to tell us how it intends to respond to that ruling. Secondly, before we went into recess, the Government has appointed an emergency team to restore credibility at the new Queen Elizabeth hospital. We do not know who is on that team. We do not know what it has done. We do not know what its remittance is. We do not know what its recommendations are. We do not know what improvements have been implemented as a result. I hope that the Scottish Government will come to the chamber urgently and tell us exactly what has happened at the Queen Elizabeth hospital, because, over the summer, the imperformance of accident and emergency has continued to lag behind that of accident emergency units across the rest of Scotland. Thirdly, more people are employed in the health service today than in 2007, and I support and congratulate the Scottish Government on that. However, today we learned that nursing and consultancy vacancies are up yet again. Each year we have a remedial programme from the Scottish Government about how they are going to address it, and each year we come back and nursing and consultancy vacancies have increased further and yet again. What is the Government's programme? It is not in this document to address that. This week, a constituent came to me. He is a long-term survivor of prostate cancer. He has been going to the Victoria hospital for his routine checks. He was told this time that the checking of cancer has been privatised and that he is now to go to Ross Hall in future. I have no particular objection to the independent sector having these services contracted out. It was Weight Watchers before. Maybe it is now cancer services, but it goes against the claims of the Scottish Government that it was going to freeze out the independent sector and that there was no role for it in the Scottish health service. Is it the case that it is now contracted out routine cancer check services? Can the cabinet secretary confirm that? The answer is no, it has not. Of course, individual cases where they need to be seen urgently if they have to use the independent sector for those individual cases rather than having to wait, that is what will happen. Unlike your Government down south, this Government will never privatise the NHS. That is just what you have done. This is not an emergency case. This is his routine annual check that has now been contracted out to Ross Hall and the independent sector. The cabinet secretary needs to check her facts. There is nothing in this programme about plans for the winter this year. We have gone through two relatively mild winters where the NHS has been under enormous pressure. I have looked through this programme. It is not addressed. Sixthly, the Government says that it is going to invest in primary care. We hope to do that. Running out of time. I welcome the increase of a 41 million in the provision of health visitors. However, this Government has talked about an all-party consensual approach to health now for two years. The Government's idea of an all-party consensus is that everybody in this chamber agrees with what the SNP Government says. Time is running out. If we are going to have an all-party consensus on health, then we need an all-party approach to it, and that is sadly lacking in the Scottish Government programme for health. Thank you, Mr Carlaw. I now call Angela Constance to wind up the debate. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. For one moment, I thought Jackson Carlaw was going to tell us that he was part of the national government during wartime. In cognisance of the old ones of the best, in cognisance of Patrick Harvie's contribution and his appeal for education not to be used as a political football, I want to start my remarks by making a considered effort in that regard. I want to thank Fiona McLeod in her role as acting children's minister for all the work that she has done in relation to kinship care. We will obviously say more on Thursday about how this Government will be supporting the equalisation of funding between kinship care allowances and foster care allowances. I also want to welcome Eileen Campbell back from our maternity leave. I also want to take this opportunity, although she is not at her seat, to welcome Kezia Dugdale to her new role. I know that her commitment to look after children is genuine, and I know that there is one that is shared across this chamber. I also recognise her passion for tackling gender inequality. I do not agree with her in terms of introducing a special qualification for teachers to work with disadvantaged children in disadvantaged communities. That is because, in the same way that I believe looked after children are all aberrants, I believe that for everyone and every part of the education system that we all, at our heart, have a moral responsibility to Scotland's poorest children and to ensure that they get every chance to succeed in their education. To Ruth Davidson, I agree that more time should be spent on the initial teacher education on literacy and numeracy. That is something that the education committee and members have raised with me in something that I am pursuing with the providers of the initial teacher education, obviously recognising that they are part of autonomous higher education institutions. If I can say to Liz Smith that I do agree in terms of delivering equity that that does not mean providing the same to all children. Some children need support more than others, certainly. I thank the cabinet secretary for those comments. I praise the First Minister for delivering a policy this afternoon that will ensure that the discrimination for kinship care is ended. Will the Scottish Government do exactly the same thing for access to nursery provision, which discriminates on the birthday for that child? There are a lot of really important issues as we move forward with our ambition to deliver over 1,000 hours of free early learning and childcare. There are three things that we need to do, as well as increasing the hours. We need to maintain the quality, but we also have to find ways to improve the flexibility. As we move forward as a Government, we will be laying out in more detail how we intend to meet those three very important principles, increase the hours, maintain the quality and increase the flexibility. When it comes to Willie Rennie, Willie Rennie was the speaker that I struggled to find most consensus with. I looked closely at the pupil premium, but the evidence of what happened south of the border just did not back it up. I was particularly disappointed that he misrepresented and really tried to blister the debate around the draft national improvement framework. Perhaps I can inform the chamber of comments from Larry Flanagan, the general secretary of the EIS, who commented following the speech by the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, this afternoon. Larry Flanagan said that the EIS is encouraged to see that the First Minister has been listening to the EIS and others and is not advocating a return to the failed high stakes testing regime of the past, which the EIS would have opposed resolutely. The Scottish Government's intention to create a Scottish-designed bank of standardised tests to support teachers' professional judgment would appear to be designed to build on the ethos of curriculum for excellence rather than undermining it. It is essential, however, that the mistakes of the past are not repeated and that safeguards are put in place to avoid the issues of data generated through proposed assessment. I say to Mr Rennie that this is not about harking back to the past. This is about looking to the future and ensuring that every child and every community has every chance to succeed. While we know that 9 out of 10 school leavers go into positive destinations, I want our education system to work for the remaining 1 out of 10. The purpose of the national improvement framework and other aspects of the programme for government is indeed to improve outcomes for children. In that regard, we will always be informed by the evidence because we are not, unlike some of our colleagues across the floor, interested in ideology. The First Minister has outlined an ambitious programme for government that is building on the strong foundations laid in the last eight years. It is looking to the future, it acknowledges the challenges, and we will address the challenges from a position of strength and from a position of hope. Thank you. The debate continues tomorrow. We now move to decision time. There are no decisions to be taken. Oh, we have a point of order. Mary Pee.