 A we now turn to topical questions. To ask the Scottish Government for its reaction to the findings of the AMB Union report on Northsead decommissioning costs Cabinet Secretary Keith Brown. As made clear on our programme for government, the Scottish Government recognises that the opportunities that are presented by decommissioning and we are committed to ensuring Scotland's d sinon consecutive project on allate their company position or any job. Yesterday, the Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, and I hosted a round table of industry representatives who focused on the challenges and opportunities that they have bore by decommissioning and whose further engagement is on-going. Scottish Enterprise is developing a decommissioning action plan that needs to be published by the end of the year. They are working closely with Scottish ports and harbours that can understand their capabilities and to i'w ddod i nhw ymwyngoedd sydd yn gyntafol i ddechrau'ch gwahodraeth gweithio o'r cyfleoedd gyda'r sector cyfnogau. The Government's priority is to encourage industry to maintain the infrastructure that exists already in the North Sea, so that the value of oil and gas reserves can be maximised. The GMB report notes that the current structure of decommissioning tax relief is in their words, severely restricting the potential for new entrants with more agility and a lower cost base to extend the life of many UK CS fields. The Chancellor's autumn Ar fluorescent druffham's statement presents an ideal opportunity to offer the industry the support and clarity it deserves. The UK government must provide support in widening access to recomissioning tax relief to ensure that the full potential of late-life assets can be realised. As called for both by the Scottish Government and the industry." Gillian Martin is mentioned to model the Chancellor Give's Ottoman statement. Tomorrow, his statement will have the opportunity to outline vital support for the North Sea oil and gas industry. running representationism on behalf made to the UK Government on decommission tax relief? The Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution wrote the Chancellor of the Sh tracker on suppose 13 November. It calls for the autumn statement to improve the access to December 3 for decommission tax relief. The letter also highlighted addressing the fiscal barriers to asset transfers that can also extend the The future of assets and reduce decommissioning costs. In addition, I have made representations to the previous the Treasury about loan guarantees for infrastructure within the North Sea? Julian Martin. Yesterday, the Scottish Government signed the Aberdeen city region deal, which includes investment for the expansion of Aberdeen harbour. Can the cabinet secretary update Parliament on how those plans are progressing and how increased harbour capacity will help the north-east of Scotland to capitalise on the opportunities of decommissioning in the North Sea? As a member says, we did indeed sign the Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire city deal yesterday, which comprised around £250 million of support, equally split between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, and an additional £254 million was also committed by the Scottish Government in relation to capital activities. The Aberdeen harbour expansion has both regional and national significance, and it will strengthen the harbour's key role in supporting the economy in the north-east, in particular the oil and gas sector. Aberdeen harbour board has progressed discussions with the preferred bidder for the implementation of the works. Scottish Enterprise is in the process of engaging with Scottish ports regarding their interests in providing facilities for decommissioning activity. It is also investigating what can be done to make Scottish locations more competitive for those types of projects. A decommissioning action plan is scheduled for publication in December 2016. The cabinet secretary will have seen the report from the GMB this week that makes clear that the Scottish Government and the UK Governments must be taking action to make sure that Scottish workers get those jobs and that all the work does not go to other countries. The report very clearly calls for an urgent investment fund between the UK and Scottish Governments. Can the cabinet secretary please tell me what plans he has for such an investment fund, separate from any city deal arrangements? What we are concentrating on currently is trying to first of all identify, as the GMB report seeks to do, the size of the opportunity that is there. It is quite clear from a factor of 46 to 1 that the massive amount of expenditure and decommissioning will be concentrated on plugging wells and abandoning wells. That is where the high-value jobs, where the high-value work comes. Of course, there is a possibility for taking top-sides and deconstructing those in harbours and ports. We want to understand the level of that opportunity, the level of investment that is required to make sure that we can tap into that opportunity. Although it is urgent that we do that, it is also true to say, as the industry will tell you, that the cost reduction activities that they have been involved in have now pushed out quite substantially their decommissioning plans in many cases. What they are now concentrating on in those cases is maximising the economic recovery from those facilities. We will keep very close to the industry. Paul Wheelhouse and I discussed this yesterday, we will talk further with the trade unions and those ports and harbours that are interested in taking on that work. We will make sure that it is appropriate at the time that those opportunities become available. Does the cabinet secretary support the decommissioning programme put forward by Shell, UK and the Brentfield? Recognising the real growth to be captured in the north-east is through learning and innovation, supported by the oil and gas technology centre, funded by the city deal yesterday, which I visited yesterday, and exporting those skills globally. That is a very good point. The point that the member makes about the Brentfield, just to go back to the point that I have just made in response to Jenny Marra, is that there are more than 100 companies active, many of which are Scottish companies involved in that process in the Brentfield. A huge amount of economic activity is going on in terms of decommissioning right now. The member is also right to say through the oil and gas technology centre that, if we can produce the innovation that is required and provide collaboration between the different actors that are interested in this work, then we can develop such expertise that can be sold around the world to the benefit of companies in the north-east of Scotland. Lewis Macdonald Clearly, technologies in the oil and gas technology centre and elsewhere can play a key role in taking forward decommissioning. However, does the cabinet secretary acknowledge that the time for action is now and that the urgency of the opportunity is that Scotland has to act quickly if it is to gain those opportunities at this stage while companies are making their decommissioning plans going forward? I agree with the member that we have to act now, but I would make the point again, as I did to Jenny Marra, that the industry itself says that its plans have changed quite substantially because of the low price of oil that they have had to get involved very substantially in cost reduction. That has also led to some more marginal fields being pushed further out in terms of the length of time that they will be exploited. We will respond to what the industry is doing. That is the way to do it, to try to identify the opportunity. Of course, there are opportunities that are there, but it is important to recognise that a lot of that is going on right now in many high-value jobs in Scottish companies and UK companies that are being sustained by the decommissioning activity that Scotland and the UK have an extremely well-in. At the same time, we should of course be aware of future opportunities as well. To ask the Scottish Government whether we will consider holding a public inquiry into deaths in childbirth in NHS Ayrshire and Arran. Cabinet Secretary Shona Robison, the death of any mother or baby in childbirth is a tragedy for all involved. Following concerns raised by local parents, I have asked Healthcare Improvement Scotland to undertake a rapid review of the processes that Ayrshire and Arran have in place to review and capture learning from significant adverse events and to look at the internal investigations that the board has undertaken. I have offered to meet with the parents concerned on the conclusion of that process. I should say that we have the lowest ever recorded maternal mortality rate and stillbirth rate in Scotland. Last year, 88 babies were born alive as a result of the processes that we have in place to drive down the stillbirth rate compared with the 2011 figures, but we are certainly not complacent. A programme of work is under way led by the Scottish Government's stillbirth group that I established. Through our Scottish patient safety programme, we should better understand the incidents and causes of stillbirth to continue to drive the rate of stillbirth down further. I thank the cabinet secretary for her response. We welcome yesterday's announcement into an HIS review, and naturally our condolences are with all the families involved in those cases. However, in the tragic case of the Morton family, they wrote to the minister in January of this year. Then again in May, my colleague Brian Whittle followed this up with a letter in June, and finally a one-page cursory response was received from the minister in July. In her response, the only reference to her review is that of a pre-existing Government review into maternity services announced the year before. So, may I ask the cabinet secretary why has it taken FOIs, whistleblowers, a BBC investigation and negative press headlines and, indeed, the lodging of this topical question in Parliament today, before the cabinet secretary finally accepted that this was a serious problem and announced the formal review? Can I say first of all that some of the at least three of the six cases that have been mentioned so far predate the HIS review that was carried out in 2012? Let me just go back for a second to the HIS review in 2012, because there was a detailed review of the adverse event management in the spring of 2012 at the request of the then cabinet secretary. Some improvements have been made. It is important to say that, within Ayrshire and Arran, as well as the rest of Scotland, the deaths of neonatal babies and the rate of stillborns and, indeed, maternal deaths have reduced. That is something that we should acknowledge. However, what I want Healthcare Improvement Scotland to do is to look at some of the concerns raised by the families about the processes and procedures followed or not followed by Ayrshire and Arran. What I want to assure myself of is that what was supposed to happen in each of those cases did happen. If not, we need to know why that was the case and to reinforce with Ayrshire and Arran and, indeed, any other health board that, when there is a significant adverse event, there are very clear processes that his established that should be followed. Indeed, if it comes to a reference of a case to the Crown, there are very clear guidelines there as well. I want to assure myself in all of those cases that those processes were followed. If not, then action will be taken to make sure that the lessons are learned from that. Jamie Greene I reiterate that we welcome the specific review, but we also want to make the point that all potential options for audit and scrutiny should be on the table, including the option of a third-party inquiry. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary will agree to that suggestion. The issue that a lot of people have, Presiding Officer, is that four years ago, a similar HIS review into north NHS Ayrshire and Arran made very specific recommendations on what could be done to improve the reporting of significant adverse events. Previous reports also flag problems around fetal heart monitoring, for example, but staff shortages are preventing midwives from being able to attend those mandatory training sessions and the health board is still failing to carry out serious adverse event reviews. Therefore, in addition to the HIS inquiry that was announced yesterday, what further measures the Government is taking to ensure that any recommendations coming out of an inquiry or review are not just acknowledged but acted upon and if the cabinet secretary will take personal responsibility for overseeing the process. Let me remind the member that, when the first review in the spring of 2012 was carried out, Healthcare Improvement Scotland developed a framework and a programme of reviews. It was to try and ensure that there was a consistency and approach to managing adverse events. That national framework was published in September 2013, and then it was refreshed again in April 2015. In 2015, Healthcare Improvement Scotland also held a series of progress meetings with boards to understand how they were continuing to implement the national framework. There was action that came out of that review in 2012. New procedures were established and, indeed, HIS went back to make sure that those processes were being carried out. What I need to understand about Ayrshire and Arran is that in those cases where families have raised concerns, where those procedures and processes followed, bearing in mind that half of the cases predated that review in 2012. That is what we need to know. In terms of any action after his report to me, we need to wait and see what his say before we judge whether further action is required. However, I would expect all boards—I have asked my officials to make sure that all boards are reminded of the processes that are required to be carried out when there is a significant adverse event, and to remind them of the guidelines for referrals of any cases to the Crown Office. The member also mentioned the issue of staffing. What I can say is that we have an increased number of midwifery staff in the NHS. There is a 4.1 per cent increase in the number of midwives over the past few years, since September 2007 to June 2016. Overall, NHS Scotland meets the Royal College of Midwives-recommended midwife-to-birth ratio. We are also aware that, sometimes, there are challenges in particular areas, but in Ayrshire and Arran, it has recently recruited six additional midwives to the team and are planning further recruitment later in the year. The national review that is coming to me in the next few weeks is also looking at working with the Royal College of Midwives to make sure that the models of care being delivered in our maternity and neonatal units are the best that they can be, and that is also looking at what the workforce tools should be in taking that forward. I am very happy to make that review available to Parliament. I thank the Presiding Officer for his indulgence, and I urge the cabinet secretary to make this inquiry wider and deeper. On a due date in 2009, my wife Patricia, having been sent home and been physically sick, was finally admitted to the southern general maternity unit despite their protests. A consultant, junior doctor and two midwives examined her that day. Despite being 41, a first-time mother and extreme pain from head to toe, no one picked up her preeclampsia. She was given morphine and put to bed. Overnight, her baby died and had to be delivered by cesarean. Patricia's liver ruptured and she spent 19 days in intensive care and high dependency. For 20 months, we asked Greater Glasgow and Clyde to explain how they would prevent such a failure of care reoccurring and impacting other lives. They blanked us and, when we were thereby forced to take legal action, had a QC wasting thousands in taxpayers' money to defend the indefensible. It took five years before they eventually conceded this year. What will the cabinet secretary do to ensure that other people in Ayrshire, Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland are not treated as badly when they experience such a tragedy? To Kenny Gibson, the way in which the case was handled and the experience that Patricia Gibson had was absolutely appalling and, indeed, the whole family had. We would expect all health professionals to treat anyone who has suffered any bereavement with care, dignity and respect. Clearly, that did not happen in that case. We should learn the lessons from that case. If Kenny Gibson wants to follow up with me further around some of the issues arising from that case, I would be happy to do that and to make sure that, through the national review and the work that healthcare Improvement Scotland is undertaking, that we make sure that cases such as that, where possibly can be avoided, are avoided. I would be happy to have a further discussion with Kenny Gibson about that. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I start by saying that our thoughts and condolences go to all the families that are affected. Indeed, I thought that Mr Gibson made a very powerful and, indeed, emotive case that will have touched all of us in the chamber today. I welcome the announcement of a review in Ayrsyn Arran, but I do believe that the cabinet secretary should go further. The BBC investigation found that there were more than 25,000 adverse incidents since 2011, including the death of 26 newborns, 79 stillbirths and three mothers, two losing their lives. Those figures are heartbreaking and our thoughts are with every single family who has been affected by the death of a child. The investigation also revealed that 500 incidents were related to staff shortages and more than 100 were due to delays in treatment. It is increasingly clear that there is more and more pressure being put on our front-line NHS staff who are doing an amazing job and with thousands of posts going unfilled in our health service. I have raised the issue of workforce planning with the health secretary before, and she is right to say about the numbers in terms of the NHS workforce, but the reality is that vacancies among our nurses and midwives are increasing in Scotland. I would ask her, in light of the investigation, if she will extend the review to look at staffing more widely across all maternity units in Scotland. I will address the issue that Annasarra raised about adverse events—the 25,000 that have been cited by the BBC. They range from minor adverse events such as slips, trips and bumps, administrative errors and right through to very significant adverse events. It is important to make sure that people listening to this understand that we are not talking about 25,000 significant adverse events. Every adverse event should be investigated and lessons learned from all those 25,000. However, let me focus on the significant adverse events, because we absolutely want to ensure that we, through the patient safety programme, continue to reduce those significant adverse events and avoidable deaths. Let me reiterate what I said earlier. Through the patient safety programme, which has been operating now for a number of years, we have seen the lowest levels of still birth on record. We have seen the lowest neonatal deaths on record, and we have seen maternal deaths decrease as well. Those really significant adverse events are the worst kind. We have seen huge progress being made through that patient safety programme, so it is fair to say that our maternity and neonatal units are safer now than they were four or five years ago due to that programme of patient safety work. We should thank our front-line staff for the work that they have done in achieving that. However, we absolutely must not be complacent and that work will continue. It is overseen by external scrutiny, so there is a group called Embrace, which looks at units across the whole of the UK. Every year, they do a report, and in that report it highlights any unit that is above the average for deaths. That information is out there in the public domain, and those units would then be expected to address why they have a higher than average level of avoidable deaths. That is a very, very important external scrutiny. The duty of candour will also add another layer of external scrutiny to that. On the workforce, as I said in the answer to the previous question about workforce, the overall NHS Scotland meets the Royal College of Midwives recommended midwife-to-birth ratio, and it is important that we make sure, through the national review and the work that we are doing with the Royal College of Midwives, that those workforce tools, which are very important to make sure that we have the right staffing level and the right units, are applied. Where there are vacancies, clearly that is a challenge, but we are working with boards to overcome that. There are more midwives out there. We have had four years of increase in student midwife numbers, and we now have new midwives coming out into training and into post, and that is something that we will continue to support. There is a huge amount of interest in the subject. I am only going to take one more question. There is no more time, I am afraid. Brian Whittle. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I have been working with my constituents, Mr Morgan and Mr Morton, investigating the tragic death of their son, Lucas. In scrutinising action plans produced from a previous root cause analysis review, we were shocked to discover that areas recommended for improvement in 2010 were the same areas that failed them and their son five years later. How can Mr Morgan, Mr Morton, Ms Logan and the public have any faith in any new Government review when the lessons have not been learned nor recommendations implemented from past systems failings, which, after all, is all that Mr Morgan and Morton is looking for? That is precisely why it is very important that I understand whether or not the processes and procedures that Ayrshire and Arran were supposed to have followed were followed, whether that is in the Morton family's case or any other of the cases that have been raised. I need assurance of that. If they have not been, we will take action to ensure that that happens. The 2012 review that was a previous review did establish some very important changes to ensure consistency in applying the significant adverse event processes and, indeed, making sure that lessons were learned and that there should be standardised criteria for, for example, referral to the Crown in those cases that were appropriate. If there are cases that have those processes have not been applied properly, I will absolutely take action to ensure that that is addressed. I have offered to meet with the families once I have his report to discuss the findings with them, and I would extend that invitation to the Morton family. I apologise to the members who couldn't get in there. Question 3, Liam McArthur. To ask the Scottish Government in light of reports that the Chinese company Sinofortone is willing to reopen investment discussions, what steps it will take to ensure that any investment is transparent. The Scottish Government is committed to attracting investment in jobs to Scotland from China and elsewhere, but there are currently no talks scheduled with Sinofortone. We have been clear throughout that the memorandum of understanding with Sinofortone and China railway number 3 engineering was about exploring possible investment and involved no legal, contractual or financial commitments on behalf of the Scottish Government. If projects involving the Scottish Government do arise, full due diligence will be taken forward in the normal way. The Scottish Parliament would scrutinise those projects and, if there were any concerns, projects would not happen. The Scottish Government condemns human rights abuses wherever they take place. We are committed to engaging with the Chinese Government on human rights, an issue critical to China's long-term prosperity and social stability, as part of our overall engagement. Respect for human rights and the rule of law is one of the four guiding principles that be set out up front in the Scottish Government's China strategy, and that underpin all of Scotland's dealings with China. Liam McArthur. Thank you very much. I thank the cabinet secretary for his response, but it was difficult to ascertain from that what he plans to do differently. Indeed, he referred to the fact that any processes in the future carry along in the normal way. Can he tell me that, has he looked again at the protocols that he uses to assure himself on human rights and other issues before he gets the First Minister to put pen to paper? The First Minister said that she would learn lessons. What lessons have been learned, and is there anything different? We would seek to be as transparent as possible. Just in relation to the MOU that was talked about before, it was not published at the time of signing as it related only to exploring investment opportunities, not specific investments or projects. We have since released over 70 pages of material relating to the signing of the MOU, and responded in detail to all 37 written parliamentary questions and nine FOI requests. I repeat that there was not a deal being done, there was a memorandum of understanding, discussions were taking place, and that is a way that we would seek to approach that in the future, to make sure that we are as transparent as possible and to make sure that any projects that were agreed through the Scottish Government were made available to the Parliament so that the Parliament could scrutinise those projects as they progressed. Again, I am interested and grateful to the cabinet secretary for his response, but there was nothing there that suggested the approach next time round would be any different. The First Minister assured this Parliament that she accepted that there are lessons for the Government to learn, and we will reflect on and learn those lessons. Can the cabinet secretary set out for Parliament what those lessons are for future deals? I have made clear in my previous response exactly what our approach should be. We would seek to be as transparent as possible at all times. It is important to realise, as I have said already, that there was not a deal being done here. Those were preliminary discussions, as in the nature of previous Administrations that the member was involved in previously. There is a point at which those discussions are confidential. There is a point at which we can come public. Of course, if it leads to projects, the Parliament has a very legitimate right to make sure that it is able to scrutinise those projects. We would make sure that the only actions that we took were consistent with being as transparent as possible and making as much public as possible during that process. However, it is very important that we have a Government that is willing to go out and look for investment from around the world, including with China. That is exactly what the First Minister and I have done previously. E-mails that were released under the FOI indicate from previous talks between Sinofortone and the Scottish Government that they were interested in energy projects and large-scale affordable housing projects on a scale of 3,000 to 5,000 homes, which would be manufactured in a purpose-built production facility. The company indicated at that time an interest in Falkirk and the Central Scotland area that I represent. Can the cabinet secretary confirm whether that approach to delivering affordable homes is one that he supports? Can he advise the chamber what role, if any, Chinese steel would play in those projects? Is he willing to rule that out at an early stage? Apologies to the member. I was not clear what was being asked to rule out. In relation to the affordable housing element, of course, this was not the Scottish Government building those houses, nor was there a project designed to build those houses. All that was done was a discussion that was being had. As the member has mentioned, one of the local authority areas was also involved in that process. We do not control the affordable housing that other parties want to build. We do not control that. Of course, we have our own programme in relation to affordable housing and the ambition to create 50,000 new homes over the course of this Parliament. That is what we are concentrated in. However, if somebody else wants to come in and invest in housing, of course we will look to see how we can support that. Of course we will be concerned about the nature of that, but we will be between the parties that are contracting in that regard. To repeat, that project was not an agreed project between the parties involved in discussing this. There were no projects in fact, which were being agreed at that point. All that was being agreed were discussions. As the member mentions, some mention was made in the emails that were released about possible areas of interest, but no projects were proposed. It is at that point that projects are being proposed. Of course, we want to have the due diligence that is undertaken and the scrutiny of others to make sure that those who are satisfying the Parliament's need to look at those projects as they were brought forward.