 cymdeithasol ar gyfer portledog. Fawr iechrau'r byw seats rwyf i arddag Walmart, i began live relieve to customer service at embracing, sgwy Daightwth Gw drinks C and terrorism, ar gyfer marfer gwstydd Gyllid, graddw I andswin Poeces? ..Dog yw ddatblygu am ymgweld ond asti Gwyrdd-Degwyl. Yn ei gweinydd, gwyrdd-degwyl ystyried yma gyda'r cyffredin, mae'r cyfan yn gweinio'r cyfan.. ..fy erbyn y cwrwm ac'r cyfan yn eu ffordd o'r cyfrifol wedi'u bod yn edryd o'i cyfrifol. Mae'n gweinio'r cyfrifol yng nghyrtedd y n revolutionaryist yn y cyfrifol ac yn mynd. Felly mae'n cyfrifol y grant ar gyfer cyfrifol, ac mae'n gweinydd yn ei ffordd o'r S&P.. yn cyfnodol gyda'r Gweithio UK i hynny yn dd publ i chi yn Gweithio Scoltaeth. Mynd iddynt yn gallu ddplweddol gyda Llyfrgell Cresol γaithol, gyda i weithio gyda'n gweithio gyda'i gyrddig gynnwys i'r bywau, mewn gynhyrchu, ffamilydd, ymgynghwil, a'r bydwyr yn Fscoltaeth. Dyna, idd realisticyn y cyfnodol gyda'r Prif Weinidog ac mae g達bydd honi i'n daladol yn ddiwylliannol mewn ddiwylliant ymllewid o'r gweithio'r gweithio. Felly, yr SNP yn yn ei gynhyrchu'r gweithreid o'r ddylch. Felly, sgwrs yr unrhyw gweithreid yng Nghymru, sy'n olygu yn ddechrau i gefnog a'r enthyself i'r Gweithreid, mae'r unrhyw gweithreid yng Nghymru i'r Gweithreid a'r Eftrwg Gweithreid yng Nghymru i'r Gweithreid. Felly, mae'n gweithreid yng nghymru i'r Gweithreid! Mae SNP yn rhai o'r ffnwysig ar y ddechrau, yw'n gwybod yw'n gweld i'r Sgoltland yn yw'r poeni, a gafodd yn unig iawn gyda'r digwydd. Mae'r gweld yma gweld yn gweld i'r wath o'r ffordd yn y gweld i'r blynyddiant. Rwy'n meddwl y dyfodol i'r Gwyrwyr, ysgolwyr yn gyffredigio'r ysgolwyr ysgolwyr a ffocos o ffodol 5 gyfawr o'r ffordd. Fygo'r ffamilau i'n gilyddol i'r eich cyfrifoedd, rydych chi'n gweithio'r byddan nhw i'r cyfrifol ysgolwyr. i poolid rydym ni'n gael y ddull gwaith o'r pandemi rhaglen, iael honi y cwmwyno ar y cyfrifiadau, i weld yn fawr nawr o'r newid gyda'r Gareth Cymru. Those are the priorities that people across Scotland are looking for now, and in the time of national crisis, they are the right priorities for the whole of Scotland. The right priorities are a time of national emergency. For the last three years, when this parliament has debated the programme for government, thank you to that it has been with the backdrop of national challenges unlike any that we have seen before in 2020 the Covid pandemic remained a threat with no certainty over how it was going to end in 2021 we face the difficulty of recovering from that pandemic of getting our economy moving and our public sector delivering the services we all rely on day in, day out and today there is the global cost of living crisis Ac mae'r gwnaeth ffordd yn ysgolwyd yn gyfnod a'n ymdweud o'r cyfnod ar gyfer mae gennym ni Gwyrddol. Mae'r gwnaeth yn ymdweud i'ch gweithio'r cyfnod yn wych yn rhan fwybod o'r gwyrddol yw pethau gyfnod yng Nghymru ar y gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r gweithio'r Gwyrddol. Yn y rhaglion dwylo yma wrth gwrs, mae wedyn haf erioed o gyfrifrolygiad. Yn gyfan gweithio'r gweithio, mae'n ymgyrch. in our lifetimes. It demands our government's put country above party. They must put normal politics to one side and rise to the occasion. They must make hard choices about putting their own... Well, I'm very happy to take interventions. I know that the First Minister prefers statements where no one can intervene, but if any SNP member wants to intervene, rather than heckling, please do. Nope, they've not been given the script from the front bench or anything. As I was saying, they must put normal politics to one side and rise to the occasion. They must make hard choices and they must govern for the whole country, not just their supporters. So it's with that weight of national expectation that we assess this programme for government that the SNP and the Greens have put forward today. Unfortunately, it doesn't deliver on Scotland's needs. Throughout the summer, and again today we heard it from the First Minister, they've only sought to point the finger of blame at Westminster. Yet when the time came for them to set out their own plan, as we could have done today, they've instead told Scots to wait a couple of weeks and tune in later for an emergency budget. Where was the proposed rapid spending review that John Swinney was carrying out over the summer? Why can't the SNP Government announce major support today? Surely it's been able to find something in John Swinney's inquiries over the summer. Again, I'll give way to the cabinet secretary if he'll... John Swinney? I'm very happy to respond to Mr Ross's point. The Government is wrestling, as the First Minister has set out, with a budget settlement that was agreed when inflation was 2 per cent. Inflation is now 10 per cent. Hence the emergency statement I will give to Parliament tomorrow and the extensive opportunity that will be available for members to question me on its contents tomorrow. Any rational individual would understand that it's sensible for us to wait to see what decisions a new United Kingdom Government might take to jeopardise our budget, because that is a very real threat that we face before we take the measures to support individuals within our responsibilities. In addition, of course, to the marvellous news about the Scottish child payment, the only payment to support families in poverty around the country which this Government has today delivered. The Scottish child payment was part of the proposals that the Scottish Conservatives put forward, an increase in the Scottish child payment. Of course, where we get the funding from is often the cry, while £20 million that John Swinney is still squirreling away for an independence referendum next year. All this in the statement today from the First Minister and in the programme for government is renouncements and future promises that we know they often fail to deliver. From the same Government that said a £37 billion package of support from the UK Government worth £1,200 to more than a quarter of Scottish households was not enough. Really, this is the investment that the UK Government have made and will be continuing to make going forward. We on this side of the chamber have been absolutely clear that, as the crisis has increased, so has the need for the UK Government to do more to help those who can least afford it. I look forward to the package of support that is being outlined by the new Prime Minister and her Cabinet in the coming days. I think that Scots expect the same level of action from their devolved Government as well. However, this is another area where the document falls short of the moment that we are currently discussing. It is clear that, at a time when the SNP Government should be focused on the nap, I am quite happy to give way to the First Minister. Douglas Ross, please continue. I thought that the First Minister was chuntering away, so, well, there we go. With a apology, Presiding Officer, I was just commenting from a sedentary position, so I apologise to you wondering when Douglas Ross was going to say anything remotely of substance. Members, this is our first day back following recess, and I would be very grateful if all Members could remind themselves of the codes of conduct, which requires that Members treat one another with courtesy and respect at all times. Can I now move back to Mr Ross? Listening to your guidance, Presiding Officer, I will respectfully say that I thought the same for 31 minutes that the First Minister set out her programme for government, because what we have is a Government that is focused on the national interest and a programme for government that is packed full of political priorities, plowing ahead with her plans for a national care service, a £1.3 billion bureaucratic overhaul of social care when the service is at breaking point, and care staff on low wages are struggling with rising costs, refusing to back our North Sea oil and gas industry, and rejecting a new generation of nuclear power stations, despite energy supply being a key driver behind the cost of living crisis. The SNP and the Greens would rather import American gas and Russian oil than support jobs and communities here in Scotland. And of course, the First Minister got to her plans for a second independence referendum, which she had plans to hold in October next year, at a time when Scots are struggling with their bills. I'm looking to this Chamber for leadership that SNP will have us debating another referendum bill. During the Covid pandemic, the First Minister realised that it wasn't the time for another vote on independence and abandoned her plans. How can she honestly say that the challenges we face today are not worthy of the same response? Her own Government's figures last month show that being part of the United Kingdom is worth £12 billion in additional public spending every year here in Scotland. That is a resource that can only help us during this crisis, yet it's one that the SNP are intent on getting rid of. Instead of trying to unite this country to face this big challenge, this SNP Government is giving presidents on planning for a vote in separation, which they know they must know will only divide Scotland all over again. The wrong priority at the worst possible time. Once again, the demands of this nationalist movement have been set above those of the public, and all of Scotland will be poorer as a result of it. Yet this document is even a failure by its Government's own measure. Going into this debate, Scots Conservatives had a look over last year's programme for government document, which the First Minister stood up and delivered and said, this is what we're going to do over the next 12 months. 26 of those commitments have not been delivered. Even worse, many of those commitments would have helped struggling families right now. The First Minister mentioned the roll-out of free school meals to P6s and 7s. She said the same last year that we were promised a roll-out of free school lunches for every primary school pupil, so it's just a repetition of that. A minimum national allowance for foster and kinship care. That was announced last year. What happened? The creation of new benefits in the pension age winter heating assistance and a low-income winter heating assistance. All promised last year, none of them delivered, so surely Scotland needs a national government that will focus on these issues rather than a nationalist campaign group instead. The SNP and the Greens are failing to put their party politics to one side in the face of these massive challenges that we're facing. They're failing to pause their priorities to focus on the national interest, and they're failing to rise to the challenge of this crisis and be bold in their action, which the public expect. Those are the tests for this programme for government, and no-one can credibly argue that they're being met by the commitments in this document today. So we, as the Scottish Conservatives, have published our own plan for the year ahead in this Parliament. We should be scouring budgets to look for every penny that can be found for the cost of living support fund to help the poorest households and communities going forward. If £20 million can still be coughed up for another independence vote, surely we can scrape a little bit further in the barrel for more important public resources. At the same time, the Scottish Government should be using its tax levers that it has to pass on the UK tax cuts to Scottish workers. They are already the highest taxed anywhere in the United Kingdom, and at these difficult times, we should be doing everything we can to allow them to keep more of their own money in their pockets to better support themselves and spend in their local community helping the local economies. Deputy Presiding Officer, these are priorities that I believe should be in an SNP programme for government. I will give way at a time— Very briefly, Deputy First Minister. Thank you, Deputy First Minister. I wonder if Mr Ross would place on the record whether he supports the higher—the paid deals that have been agreed, the greater cost for the government beyond the expectations of public sector pay policy. I just put on record, I was glad, given the mess that had been made of Glasgow, Edinburgh, of towns and cities across Scotland. The First Minister finally found time in her busy schedule to get involved and get round the table. It should have happened weeks ago, and if she had less appearances at the fringe, she might have been able to get a resolution far earlier. Give way, or maybe the First Minister wants to say something in the chamber rather than to the host of celebrities she was speaking to at the time. Very briefly, Deputy First Minister. I think that Mr Ross needs to look at his gratuitous comments a little bit, in what he is muttering just now. I would like an answer to my question. Does Mr Ross support the paid deals that are higher than 2 per cent because they incur higher costs for the government to resolve, yes or no? I absolutely support rewarding our public service workers, our council workers, some of the lowest paid anywhere in the country who had to go on strike because they were being abandoned by the SNP Government. It was only when the Edinburgh fringe finished, it took the festival to end before Nicola Sturgeon thought, actually I better do something about it. As I was saying, I think that Mr Ross really needs to bring his remarks to a conclusion. Thank you Mr Ross. I will bring my remarks to a conclusion. I think giving way to the Deputy First Minister three times is very generous. I look forward to more robust debate going forward. So I would just like to say the priorities of the Scottish Conservatives reflect the national interests and fully focus on the big challenges that Scotland faces. There will always be disagreements in this chamber, that's natural, that's politics, but this programme for government was a chance to move Scottish politics on from the usual punching duty constitutional wrangling, which we've just seen a bit of, to rise to the challenge to be the national parliament that we should aspire to be and in that context this programme for government from the SNP and the Greens can only be viewed as another missed opportunity. Thank you. I now call on Anas Sabar. Good day, Deputy Presiding Officer. This is a serious time and it requires a serious debate. Prime Minister, Scotland needed a programme for government that recognised the scale of the challenge facing our country, the most immediate being the cost of living crisis, but wider action on the economy, the NHS, education and more, which I'll come back to. The cost of living crisis is a national emergency on the scale of the pandemic, and dealing with it requires both of Scotland's governments to move quickly and decisively. For months, families and businesses have been gripped by anxiety as food, petrol and energy prices have skyrocketed. On the day of the new price cap, if you can call it a price cap, on the day it was announced and households were told to expect average bills to be over £3,500, it is shameful, shameful that not a single Tory minister was available to reassure the public. It was immoral and inhumane to treat people like that. I accept that the major action that we need in the face of the energy crisis is from the UK Government. They must cancel the planned increase in energy prices. That one step would save families over £1,000. They must impose a cap on energy prices for businesses that will stop businesses going bust, and they must impose a genuine and enhanced windfall tax on energy companies who are making record profits. That will do two things—it will bring down bills, but it will also help to reduce inflation. Anything less than that would be an abdication of their responsibility and their duty. In that context, it is right for the Scottish Government to demand greater action from the UK Government. However, my frustration, and the frustration of many around this chamber and around the country, is that the Scottish Government, although it has also been absent in this crisis, acted at times that there were commentators rather than recognising the powers that it has and the responsibilities that it has. The First Minister often repeats, and this was repeated again today, that the Scottish Government has a fixed budget. Actually, it has a legal duty to deliver a balanced budget. Roughly a third of their income comes from taxes imposed here in Scotland. The First Minister leads an administration that can raise revenue, can grow the economy and can make laws here in Scotland. In that context, I am not going to be taking any interventions just like the First Minister did. The First Minister leads an administration. They should be doing everything that they can to help with the powers and the resources that they have. It is why Labour published an emergency cost of living act, detailing just some of the measures that we could take right now here in Scotland. As I said on the day that we published our plans, I do not care about who claims credit for any changes that are implemented. I am more interested in families getting the support that they need right now. In that spirit, I want to welcome the change of heart from the SNP and the Greens when it comes to rent freezes. This is a practical measure that will support many people who need help now. I am glad that the months of campaigning from my colleague Mercedes Villalba and the living rent campaign have paid off. We have come a long way in just a few months. In June, John Swinney stuck to the can't do script and said that the Scottish Government do not have the power to impose a rent freeze, proved wrong. Just a few weeks ago, Patrick Harvie said that our proposals were unworkable, proved wrong. One SNP MP even said that Mercedes Villalba was naïve for even suggesting the measure. It is always welcome when politicians admit that they were wrong and commit to doing the right thing. I hope that we can see more humility from the SNP and the Greens in the coming months. However, there is more that this Government can do. As I said this summer, Scottish Labour set out plans for what action they can take right now with the powers that they have and within their budget. Have rail fares, cap the cost of burst journeys and an online fuel price tracker. It is worth noting just for a moment on rail fares that what the First Minister actually did in Government was increase rail fares earlier this year and now impose a freeze. It is not a freezing of rail fares, it is an increase of a freeze when they could have used their powers to have rail fares as well as cap the cost of burst journeys. They can do emergency reforms to debt legislation, increase funding from money advice services and cancel school mule debt. They should be topping up the welfare fund, a water charge rebate and a business hardship fund. This would form the basis of an emergency cost of living act using the powers and the resources that we have in this Parliament to change lives for the better. For almost a year now, the Labour Party has been demanding action on the cost of living crisis. From the windfall tax to the energy price freeze and the rent freeze, we have been setting the agenda from opposition. Imagine what we could do in Government. An often repeated claim by the SNP is that they do not have the money. They can start by not wasting money. For that reason, I welcome the promised emergency budget review, but it must be a real one, because it is clear that we can deliver more for the people of Scotland by focusing on their priorities, especially now when they need help the most. Since 2007, the cost of the Scottish Government has doubled. Record number of ministers, special advisers and spin doctors are all helping to lead a campaign, not a Government. There is one cut that you can make right now and put money in people's pockets instead. In the SNP's 15 years in Government, more than £3 billion has been lost to incompetence and waste, £152 million on the failed ferry contact at Ferguson's, £146 million on fixing mistakes in hospital construction at the Edinburgh sick kids and Queen Elizabeth, almost £200 million on the failed industrial interventions, almost £1 billion on agency staff in the NHS because Nicola Sturgeon cut training places while she was health secretary, and more than £1 billion on delayed discharge because her Government has not fixed social care. That in itself is worth £1,200 for every household in Scotland. That is the difference that you can make if you are not wasting opportunity and wasting money, but turning to the wider programme for Government. We should not forget that the SNP first promised to create a publicly owned, not-for-profit energy company in 2017. That policy was ditched before the pandemic, so no using Covid excuses there. A perfect demonstration of the SNP promising big, making announcements to get the headlines and then failing to deliver. Today, as an energy crisis hits Scotland, we must make sure that the lofty rhetoric of today does not just become another in the long list of policies announced with fanfare and then never ever delivered. The First Minister has presided over a Government that has hoarded political power and too often failed to do something meaningful with it. Some might say that there has never been a politician with so much power but who has done so little with it. In her grasp has been the power to transform Scotland, to grow our economy, to rebuild our NHS, to renew our education system and to deliver a green revolution. Instead, too often, the SNP has been timid and passive. Maybe this time will be different, but after 15 years it is hard to give this Government the benefit of the doubt. Change will only come when the First Minister and her Government decides to end the culture, where every failure comes with a ready-made excuse. It is always somebody else's fault. So no-one will be surprised by the inclusion of a referendum bill today, but they will be frustrated by the waste of money and resources, because the problem and the crisis is right now. I hate to break it to the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the SNP, but whether you voted yes or no, whether you voted leave or remain, your bills are going up right now. You need urgent action right now. You need a UK Government to step in right now to impose an energy price phase and a windfall tax, and you need an emergency cost of living act in Scotland right now to put more money in people's pockets. Because it is right that we have a heavy focus on the cost of living crisis today because of the immediate nature of it, let us not pretend that there are no other crisis rumbling on in Scotland under this Government's watch. We were promised a period of recovery. The recovery did not even start yet and we got thrown into this cost of living crisis. Under this Government's watch there is a crisis in our NHS. The numbers today prove that. There are more than 700,000 Scots on an NHS waiting list. That is one in eight Scots waiting for an appointment and treatment. More than 9,000 children and young people are waiting for a mental health appointment. There is a crisis in our education system, a promise to feed every child in Scotland's primary skills broken, the attainment gap refusing to close and money shamefully cut from schools in the purest communities. A crisis in our communities, the highest drug deaths in Europe, a quarter of children living in poverty, £6 billion cut from council budgets since 2014, used the powers that you have. Do not look elsewhere, do not find someone else to blame, but take action and make different choices. Fundamentally, politics is about choices. I welcome some of the moves today, for example on the eviction ban and the rent freeze and the action taken on the Scottish child payment. It is right that the First Minister has moved in that direction. I accept that, but much, much more needs to be done to address this cost of living crisis, not simply a cost of living crisis, because it is not enough. We need to go further and we need to go faster if we are to avert this crisis. Now more than ever, people need politicians who will put aside their own obsessions and priorities and act in the public interest. This cannot be just another programme for government that goes through the motions and promises change and delivers nothing, because government is more than just simply a campaign. The title of First Minister is more than just simply a status. Power is more than just a privilege and a responsibility. Use government, use the status, use the power to change people's lives and improve Scotland right now. I rise for the Liberal Democrats. This programme for government is a poor read and it represents very thin rule to anxious Scots who will be looking to this chamber this afternoon for reassurance. The First Minister gives the impression that her government has responded to the crisis with £3 billion worth of money, yet this is a figure that has been roundly debunked by the Scottish Parliament's own information centre time and time again. I also point out that another flagship announcement today on rail fares, after hiking rail fares by 4% this year already, today's announcement only delays a further increase by just two months. When you look at rail travel across the rest of Europe, that's just embarrassing. It is clear that after more than 15 years in power this is a government that likes the humility, the creativity and the ambition necessary to solve the problems that the people of Scotland currently face. Presiding officer, those problems are legion. We face the biggest hit to household budgets since the liberation of western Europe in 1918. Households in almost every demographic in Scotland are eyeing the coming months with real fear, energy costs, food prices, rising home costs and mortgages. This crisis isn't just coming over the horizon, it is already here. While the face that the helm in London has changed, the people of the United Kingdom have no faith that the Conservative Government has their best interests at heart. As Shakespeare might have put it, now is the summer of our discontent made in glorious and freezing winter by this daughter of Yorkshire. Liz Truss could dispel the anxieties of millions of households and businesses who fear their coming energy bills. She could do so in a heartbeat by adopting Liberal Democrat proposals embraced by other parties that would freeze the price cap for the coming year, paying for that freeze with a meaningful windfall tax on the super profits of the energy producers. The UK Government are not the only ones with the levers of power necessary to help Scottish struggling families. I find it astonishing that the SNP has used this summer to focus solely on their efforts to break up the United Kingdom, blind in large part to the suffering around them and desperately trying to pass the buck for things that they manifestly had the power to fix. Presiding Officer, I hope that, as she moved between venues of her fringe appearances, the First Minister felt her profound sense of shame. All that mess, the lost business, the reputational damage to our festivals, are the direct result of the year-on-year cuts by her Government to local council funding that prevented councils from offering vital workers the pay rise that they deserved. Our capital was disgraced by the refugee strikes. Edinburgh was diminished, it was sullied and made a material threat to public health as the bins piled high and the vermin feasted. Presiding Officer, if it was in the First Minister's power to intervene to end the bin strikes in early September, it was in her power to stop them in July. We have today heard that the First Minister will plead governmental poverty to almost all of this and lean into the fallacy that we have a fixed budget. She talked about hard choices. Will let me direct her to some savings that she could make tomorrow. First Minister, abandon your costly ministerial paragrab of social care, scrap national testing in our schools, tell your ministers to stop playing dress up diplomat in embassies that we do not need and stop spending your time and our money on a referendum that is simply not wanted by the people of Scotland. Presiding Officer, the other crisis of the SNP's own creation is in the fate of those Ukrainians languishing in temporary accommodation who sought safe harbour in our country. At this point, I should refer members to my register of interest in that since August my family and I have been host to a Ukrainian refugee under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. I'm sorry, I hear once again, not for the first time, I hear cheers and heckling to that Presiding Officer. What message does it send to families that we are trying to entreat to open their homes to Ukrainians if all they will get from SNP members is derision and scorn? It's utterly shameful. During recess I met with aid workers based in Lviv working to provide safe passage out of Ukraine and into Scotland. They described the Scottish Government as being humiliatingly underprepared for the needs of refugees. The Government rolled out a supersponder scheme and called an abrupt halt to it a few months later, leaving thousands of people in limbo and even forcing some families to separate. Scottish ministers wanted the positive press of being seen to be helping but did little of the backroom work necessary to make it happen. So we have homes across Scotland still waiting to be matched with the Ukrainian guests and Ukrainians placed in remote areas without access to transport. I am quite certain, Presiding Officer, that as those huddled masses made their way across Europe with dreams of Scotland, they did not have a disused cute cruise ship or hurricane Katrina-style gym hall accommodation in mind. I say to the Government, reissue the call for homes. Give councils the resources they need to manage this properly and extend the discretionary travel scheme so that all those who seek safe harbour here can reach job opportunities if they are in homes far away from them. There are still 18,000 Ukrainians making their way here with a visa and a promise of home. This is a bin fire. Of the warning lights springing across the dashboard of public policy, some have been crying out for this Government's attention for far longer than those that emerged this summer. Indeed, today's waiting time statistics are the worst they have ever been. A staggering one in seven Scots is on a waiting list. The seeds of this crisis were sown long ago and ministerial disinterest has allowed it to take root. That is why my party are calling for the health secretary to come to Parliament this week to set out a replacement for his failing NHS recovery plan. It is failing. I hope that, if he agrees to such a statement, he will adopt Scottish Lib Dem plans to recruit and retain staff through a burnout prevention strategy. I am also dismayed by the lack of provision in this programme for child mental health and for people of all ages who suffer along Covid. The only waiting time target for CAMHS out patients is set to be missed. The national treatment centre that the First Minister once again has been delayed so far. A study published today found that a quarter of all deaths among five to 24-year-olds were from suicide. That is devastating. Without any officer, no child should ever be left feeling suicidal. We need to move heaven and earth to ensure that every child knows that they are loved and supported, but that is not happening. The same ministerial disinterest is being visited on those Scots, many of them children who are suffering from long Covid and whose number is fast approaching 200,000. That is precious little for them in this. It is to their shame that this is all they have come to expect from the SNP. While this Government has accepted that Covid is to exist among us, it continues to make no provision for what Covid can later become. They are yet another group of people, abandoned and forgotten about on the altar of nationalism, and they are not alone. Island communities have once again been left high and dry by this Government in the pantomine that represents this Government's reprovisioning of lifeline ferries originally scheduled for completion in 2014. We're now told they'll not be ready until 2023. It's not just the boats that are behind schedule, the harbours aren't even ready to take them. This would be comic if it wasn't for the impact it is having on people's daily lives in island communities. Still, nobody has been held account for these inadequacies. When the Supreme Court throws out the legality of a non-binding referendum, ministerial disinterest in the day job will reach new heights. All the oxygen of this Government will be diverted to the single issue around which it intends to fight the next general election. We have green ministers for the first time in Scottish history. How sad it is that they have turned out to be the only green party in the world that cares more about nationalism than it does the environment. If the SNP and its green coalition partners will not fight the climate emergency, the Scottish Liberal Democrats will. We will fight the next general election on all the issues that matter to the people of Scotland. It is the height of arrogance to suggest a general election can become solely about your myopic world view and the voters will render a judgment accordingly. This programme for government offers no real hope that we can expect to find anything different from a coalition government fixated on only one thing. We will now move to the open debate. I would ask those Members who wish to speak in the open debate to make sure that they have prior to the request to speak buttons. Backbench speeches of six minutes. We do have some time in hand should Members wish to consider making or indeed taking interventions. I call Michelle Thomson to be followed by Rachel Hamilton. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It appears every time we come back from recess, the price the Scottish people are having to pay for being thorough to the UK increases and the cost is accelerating. The underlying causes of the cost of living crisis do have some short-term elements and we all hope for a speedy resolution to the war in Ukraine, but we cannot ignore the long-term root causes of the situation. The UK has, frankly, terrible economic performance over recent decades and the unequal nature of economic growth within an over-centralised UK state means that the real wages of most people are well below what they would have been had long-term rates of growth match the average of other large developed states. For many of our fellow citizens, low wages make them hugely vulnerable to price rises in essential areas like energy and food, and many in our society cannot absorb the extra costs. As recent research from the bottom line think tanks observed, growth in small advanced economies similar to Scotland has been accelerating and leaving the UK trailing in their wake. The UK quite simply lacks the broad shoulders of small advanced economies. Some of the drivers of inflation and the cost of living crisis are often forgotten. Covid has stimulated big shifts in consumer behaviours, which whole sectors of the economy have not been able to deal with fast enough due to supply chain disruption, labour market shortages and other disruptive effects of a Tory Brexit. Long-term issues of low-level investment has meant that there is little spare capacity to respond to increases in demand in some sectors. A raging debate is now on-going, albeit not here, about the inflationary effects of quantitative easing. Those fundamental issues are not going to be resolved by a central bank using the crude single tool of interest rates, nor by our new Prime Minister if early indications are anything to go by. The fear of forthcoming energy price rises is palpable. The truth of the matter is that the current energy market is not able to provide energy to households and businesses at the price that they can afford. It is a market failure and a UK Government failure as creators of that market. It disproportionately affects consumers and businesses in Scotland, despite Scotland being an energy producer. As I welcome the pre-trailed freezing of prices for 18 months, the question has to be asked as to who will pay for it. Companies and banks may benefit from Government guaranteed bridging loans, yet consumers could end up paying over the odds for years and pay the price for Tory failure. The energy market cannot continue in its current form. I am on record as calling for more borrowing powers for the Scottish Parliament, but, arguably, the energy crisis has shown why it is power over policy choices that we so badly need. The mitigations that the Scottish Government has put in place to game changing Scottish child payment and overall £3 billion this financial year are to be applauded. Are we really the type of country that the biggest ambition that we have is to mitigate rather than fundamentally change? Are the Scottish Tories and the Labour Party in Scotland so supine that the answer is always that anybody and everybody can do better than us to protect our most vulnerable citizens? In my constituency of Falkirk East, every business will be hit hard, given that there is no energy cap for them with small businesses most at risk. Around 85 per cent of the roughly 2,000 businesses in Falkirk East are very small, yet they employ approximately 7,650 of my constituency, and many of their jobs are now at risk. For some, they may face the even greater price of a loss of employment on top of escalating domestic energy bills and general inflation. Notwithstanding the damage that is being done to the Scottish people and Scottish business, our new Prime Minister apparently sees a large part of the solution to the UK's energy crisis being to exploit Scotland's rich energy resources from wind to oil and more, but not in the interests of Scottish people. Indeed, as an increasing number of Scottish people twig what the Tories up to, they seem intent on curtailing the rights of the Scottish people to have a say in their future and circumventing democracy. We face a cost of living and an energy crisis, but both are underpinned by political chaos that will not be stopped by the introduction of yet another hapless Tory Prime Minister—a choice of two futures indeed—and I choose Scottish independence, not Tory dependence. Thank you. I now call Rachel Hamilton to be followed by Paul McLeanon. For 15 years, successive SNP First Ministers have stood up in this chamber to deliver a statement on their Government's plans for our country, but for millions of Scottish people living in rural areas, that statement is about what the SNP can do for them. It must seem like groundhog day for the Scottish Government, because, once again, we find ourselves retreading the steps of unkept promises. Year after year, rural and island communities have been overlooked, shortchanged and misunderstood by this Government. This year's programme for government, hamfisted by their Green Party coalition, is no departure from that trend—in fact, it is getting worse. Rural affairs was mentioned just six times in this 36-page document. Farmers and crofters are the linchpin of our rural communities, as the world tackles a food insecurity crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine. They continue to work hard for us to keep us fed and watered. Their award for this year's programme for government is uncertainty, more red tape, a Bill on Grouse, a tourist tax—at this point, I would like to draw a member to register my interests—and a system that has bought European farmers taking to the streets with their tractors in protest. This is what this Government want to do. They want to align with that system. The programme for government was a chance to tell the chamber what, for example, the dedicated food security unit in Scotland is doing. Scottish farmers have waited six years to find out what a post-Brexit agricultural bill would look like. In that time, the Scottish Government has managed to copy and paste the EU hated cap policy. Yet still, SNP ministers opt to sideline academic and scientific consensus in favour of aligning with the EU. Scotland's farmers want the tools to advance themselves, to protect the environment, to reverse the loss of biodiversity that is witnessed under this Government. Farmers and industry bodies such as the NFUS have expressed deep concern over the Scottish Government proposals, left out on a limb and waiting for the Government to get a move on. They despair as their views simply have not been listened to. Back in May, 11 organisations, including NFUS, Quality Meet Scotland and the Scottish Land Estates, wrote to the Scottish Government to express their concerns over the impact of rising inflation. They called for crucial support payments to be brought forward to ease their cash flow concerns. The concerns were mirrored by hundreds of farmers that I spoke to at all the agricultural shows over the summer. Four months later, we are still waiting. The last year has been a tale of broken promises. The SNP Government talked the talk about thriving rural and island communities, but when will we see them walk the walk? A tourist tax is going to go down like a bucket of cold sick. Last year, we were told by summer 2022 that we will introduce a new £5 million island bonds fund, providing up to £50,000 each up to 100 households by 2026. Where is that? A policy rejected outright by islanders. 16 subsea fibre cables to 15 Scotland's islands will begin to be laid by 2022. Where are they? A £20 million rural entrepreneur fund provides grants up to 10,000 to support the creation of new businesses, or the relocation of existing businesses, scrapped. Peatland restoration, the budget, slashed. Where is the food processing, marketing and co-operation fund? Where is the seafood strategy? What has happened to the sustainable Scottish brand ambition? It is absolutely banished. Failure after failure. This is before mentioning the ferry fiasco, R100, the centralisation of public services away from rural areas. When will this Government stop shirking their devolved responsibilities and confront these specific issues? This debate is rightly focused on the cost of living prices and soaring energy prices. The contributions made in today's debate have highlighted the gravity of the situation that we are facing today in Scotland. I have no doubt that members from all sides of this Chamber will be receiving letters and emails and calls from constituents struggling with their bills. I wonder what this Government will do to support them. I am able to tell my constituents with confidence that our new Prime Minister will do everything possible that she can to support people and help them with their bills. In an announcement this week, building on the unprecedented package of support—if you tell me where all of the policy proposals have gone—on the point about supporting household budgets, will she and her party support the rent freeze and the moratorium on evictions? We would like to see the detail of that legislation. I do not see what is so funny about this. This is a Government that wants to bring in red tape, bureaucracy, farmers and the detail of future farm policy. They are asking us to give our opinion on some of the policies that we have not even seen the detail of the legislation on. It is absolutely a joke. This is not a programme for Government. The people need something that is going to give back to them, particularly in rural areas. Devolution has placed significant power in the hands of this Government that would allow it to address the unique issues that our country faces, alongside the issues that the world at large is facing. Instead of using those powers for the benefit of people across the whole of the country, the SNP and the Green Government are choosing to sacrifice our nation's prosperity for their own selfish needs. I am glad to be speaking in this debate. This afternoon, I have been elected in May last year. Last summer, it was very frustrating that, due to Covid, visiting constituents, be they residents, social enterprises, tourist attractions, it was very hard to do. This summer, it has been great to visit constituents all over East London. All the meetings had a similar theme—the cost of living. Be there is through energy costs, inflation or supply costs. There was a real palpable fear of the future. My main reason for being interested in politics was how to protect the most vulnerable in our society. It was always of the view that Westminster made that task more difficult and that an independent Scotland would be the best option to protect those most in need. That view right here and right now is stronger than ever. Look at the UK situation at this moment in time. Sterling is down 15 per cent this year alone and is moving towards parity with the dollar. It is the lowest growth rate in the G20 apart from Russia and the highest inflation rate forecast in the G7. Last week, inflation was forecastarised to 22 per cent—economic levers held by Westminster. I have had many discussions with families when I was sick about how they pay their energy bills. That will mean that their expenditure outstrips their income. It is as simple as that. Many families already cannot afford to eat, never mind heat. It is not a choice about what to pay, but they cannot do it. The University of York last week estimated that 72 per cent of households would be in fuel poverty in Scotland, rising to 86 per cent of pensioners if the energy cap rise went ahead. That is 70,000 people in my constituency, so it is loading 70,000 people. Another survey also highlighted that 25 per cent of residents will also plan to keep the heating off this winter. That rose to 35 per cent of one parent families. That is 25,000 people in Eastland who will not be putting the heating on this year. Last week, I held a third Eastland poverty forum that I had set up, bringing together national and local groups that work in the anti-poverty sector. All the groups reported massive increases in referrals to them and their services. Eastland found back and reported that, since last October, when the universal credit uplift was removed, an average of 80 to 90 per cent increased year-on-year in their demand. The participants in the forum agreed on four main priorities, ensuring that food banks could meet demand. That is a real worry about how they could meet demand. Premises were identified in each locale as heat banks or heat refugees. In 2022, it is incredible that we are even talking about that, looking at heat banks. If people go to Axel to survive and get a heat, that advice services were adequately resourced, and the benefit maximisation was a key target. We are experiencing the most difficult cost of living conditions in at least 50 years. All of us in this place must pledge to protect the most vulnerable in society. That is what we are all here for, and that is what our constituents expect. The programme for government sets out how the Scottish Government is doing just that. The Scottish child payment is unique to Scotland. Such the member herself is unique to Scotland—a most ambitious child poverty reduction measure in the UK. The payment was doubled to £20 per week by her child in April, and the further increase to £25 from November will mean anise of 150 per cent in the past eight months—a hundred and fifty per cent. There are currently 104,000 children in the seat of the Scottish child payment at the moment. It will have automatically increased to £25 per week. All eligible under 16s will now benefit from the new £25 rate, with all payments backdated to the date that application was received. Any slowdown, as is meant, is paying out near enough 2,500 successful applications, near enough £1.5 million. With the announcement today of extending the child payment programme, that figure will, of course, increase. Just on a point of clarity, the announcement today was only to move the date forward by seven weeks. The announcement on doubling the Scottish child payment was made in the budget in December last year, and the announcement on the additional £5 in the Scottish child payment was made in the child poverty delivery plan in March this year. None of that was announced today, so it is a re-announcement of previous policy. I do not agree with that statement, but I said that the main thing, if we come back to the point, is that it is going up to £25, it is going to extend the payment and it is going to help more vulnerable families. That is what the Scottish Government is doing. It has not been happening in the Welsh Government, the Welsh controlled labour Government, but it is happening here. I also welcome the announcement on extending universal free school meals in primary 1 to 5 to primary 6 and 7. The re-affirm pledge to keep the promise is very, very welcome. I am also delighted that the first £50 million of the whole family well-being fund will be available this year to protect the most vulnerable families. Of course, I welcome the announcement of the directories for public and private rented properties to help people struggling with their rising bills. I look forward to working with housing bodies in East Llywun to help to implement this policy and protect more of our residents. The Scottish Government has taken every action that it can within our fixed budget, because the financial means means our limited legislative powers that we have. If we do not act, more people will die this winter than ever before. More people will die. The most significant policy ever to tackle this crisis is with the UK Government, and the summer of complete inaction has compounded the difficulties that everybody is facing. The new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, needs to set out very quickly what actions the UK Government could take now. Many Governments in the UK have already taken actions to begin to address the crisis. As we mentioned before, we need an immediate cancellation of October price cap rise and an upgrading of benefits at the very least. The Scottish Government is doing the best it can with an restrictive, devolved set-up. Imagine what we could do with the powers of a fully independent nation. Thank you. I now call on Daniel Johnson to be followed by Stuart McMillan, Mr Johnson. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. A year ago in this debate, we were discussing recovery, what it would take to recover from the true historic impact of a 20 per cent drop in economic impact, because that is what happened during lockdown. That gave rise to labour and material shortages, like which we have never seen before. Now we are plunged into a cost of living emergency, with the price cap rising initially by 50 per cent, and prospect that energy prices could quadruple. That would place potentially up to 80 per cent of Scottish households in fuel poverty. That is truly staggering. We must welcome the steps that are set out in the programme for government that will help to deal with that. An emergency budget is undoubtedly necessary. Measures to deal with fuel insecurity, such as the fuel poverty fund, are welcome. Although the Scottish Government could at least acknowledge that we have already seen prices rise before that freeze has been implemented, action on debt is due. Although the First Minister is right to point out that the financial regulation is reserved, debt policy and legislation are here. We must stretch everything as not just fuel prices rise, but also interest rates rise, and people struggle with those bills. They will be facing debt, the like of which, frankly, we have not seen in over a generation. Those are all welcome measures, because they are also measures that we on the Labour benches are calling for through the summer. When we recognised the scale of the measure, we brought forward those proposals because we recognised that emergency. Unfortunately, the context of that is somewhat made in terms of the way that the First Minister made her speech today. It took her 1,000 words, four pages, almost a third of her speech before she set out even a single one of those measures, which tells us something of the priorities that she would rather get the excuses in first, rather than actually deal with what we can do with the powers that we have. Likewise, we know the reason that we did not have anything sooner than this in terms of proposals on the cost of the crisis, because that was not the plan. We all know what the plan was. We were going to have papers about the constitution that we were going to be released one after another through the summer. I think that we have had two, where the other half dozen pulled because the Government recognised that that was not the people's party, that whatever claim you might want to make about the constitution, that it will not deal with the issues that people face here and now, that years and decades of constitutional wrangling do nothing to help people to face the bills and costs that they have now, and that is the reality. But nor does that come without any context. The reality is that the wider economic situation in Scotland is one that is a matter of concern. Indeed, I welcome Michelle Thomson raising the issues around rises in earnings and on productivity, because if we look at those measures Scotland's recovery is lagging the rest of the UK. That is what the Scottish Fiscal Commission reports show, that earnings growth is lagging not just of the best-performing parts of the UK but the UK average, that our productivity has stalled since 2015. But where is the discussion of those issues in the programme for government? We have organisations such as the WISE Group and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation calling for immediate action now on wage maximisation, because there is a simple truth, a simple logic. We have at both wage suppression and labour shortages in our economy right now. Where is the direct action? How many people with a driver's licence could earn £40,000 just for want of the right training course? It is not the only skilled trade that could benefit from people. There are jobs out there but a lack of direct action from the Government to help people into them, removing the barriers that they are in their way and helping them into the training that they might need. Likewise, I would also take issue with something Douglas Ross who said that this is a programme for government full of political priorities. I do not think that it is. We have some cost of living measures but this is apparently a pared down programme for government, one reduced to focus on the cost of living, and yet we have a number of measures that I would just question whether they are truly the priorities right now. We have reform of legal complaints, we have changes to charities bill. Is this really the narrowing of focus on those direct costs, those direct challenges? Are those really the priorities in a pared down programme for government? I would wonder. Indeed, we also have little detail on some of the major things that could make a difference. The care service, without frankly, if we look at this issue we would reiterate our concerns about the introduction of a national care service. Were people out there clamouring for more centralisation, for better quality bureaucracy and care? No, they want clear, practical, pragmatic changes to the way that care is delivered, but none of those things are addressed in the Government's current proposals. Indeed, it is shameful that the Government has reiterated its increase in pay for care of £10.50 an hour. Frankly, the rejection of our costs of an immediate increase to £12 an hour now sounds very hollow indeed, when those self-same workers are struggling with the bills, given the extreme importance of the work that they do. Ultimately, this is not a Government that does transformation well. Again, whether we look at police or colleges, there is a rebrand but no investment. Unfortunately, it looks as though the national care service is heading in the same direction. Indeed, it sounds as though the SQA is headed for yet another rebrand, with no substantial change and very little detail on this programme for government about what is planned. The simple reality is that people are not clamouring for more constitutional change for a referendum bill. They want action now, help now, bills dealt with now, not a court case, not bickering, not attempts to start a campaign for an election that might not be with us for 18 months. They want a Government that stretches every sinew to use every power to help them here and now with bills, the lights of which they have never seen before. Quite frankly, that is not what we have in this programme for government. I now call Stuart McMillan, to be followed by Jamie Greene. Thank you very much. I am quite sure that the workforce of Ferguson Miriam will be delighted to hear the comments of Manasawa earlier on in his opening statement. I want to speak in today's debate because this summer recess was certainly very different from my office. We received more calls, more emails from people struggling to afford to pay their energy bills now. That type of case work is sadly anticipated over the winter months, but not during the summer. This was not just people worried about their bills in a few months' time. This was people worrying now, struggling now, before the cold weather has set in. Therefore, I welcome this year's programme for government that will build on the actions of the Scottish Government. Some of the support that the Scottish Government has taken to support household budgets such as the Scottish child payment, the carers allowance supplement and the council tax reduction scheme. Today's announcement of the doubling of the fuel and security fund, from £10 million to £20 million, will be welcome. As well, the flexibility is given to local authorities to use the discretionary housing payments among some of the other announcements that the First Minister made today. However, the fact remains that the key levers in this crisis remain in the hand of the Tories and Westminster, and then in action has caused huge anxiety for families and massive uncertainty for businesses. The summer of navel gazing and blue-on-blue attacks has guaranteed more families and households and businesses will move in to crisis. Food banks in my constituency have contacted me to highlight how demand for their services is rocketing. However, as more and more people look to tighten their budget, the nations to food banks are on the decrease. That will make it even harder for them and other third sector organisations who support the vulnerable people in my green and unworked constituency to continue to support those in need as the cost of living crisis deepens. Paul McLean touched on that in his comments. His constituency is totally different from mine, but those similarities are very much there in terms of the understanding of what is actually going on on the ground. I did not get involved in politics to actually promote food banks. I get involved in politics to help people. Sadly, food banks at the moment are an absolute necessity to do that. The financial crisis, the economic crisis that we currently face being led by the unaction from the UK Government, is absolutely shocking and appalling. Sadly, too many people are going to die this year because of the unaction of the Tory Government. Child poverty is also expected to rise to the highest level since the peaks of the 1990s, and a further 3 million children will be plunged into absolute poverty without UK Government action. I welcome the action to this Scottish Government. I am calling on MSPs across the chamber, but particularly those in the seats to the left, to ensure that their colleagues in Westminster work to deliver similar bold actions to help households across this country. I genuinely hope that the Scottish Tories will agree with me that Westminster needs to do more to help people through this crisis and that Mr Ross will hold urgent talks with the new Prime Minister on the issue. However, with Liz Truss repeatedly saying that she is not in favour of, and I quote, handouts, it is fair to say that I am not going to hold my breath. That is despite the UN's special rapporteur in poverty, Philip Alston, saying that the UK Government's policies have led to systematic immiserations of millions across Great Britain. During challenge poverty week next month, it will be one year since the universal credit uplift was scrapped by the UK Government. It is not just the inaction of the Tories and Westminster that the Scottish Government are having to mitigate them. They are having to take decisions to deal with the harmful actions that the UK Government is taking as well. Regardless of the limited powers that it has, the SNP Government is doing more than any other UK administration to tackle child poverty. We all agree that school meals for P-125s are essential, especially during the cost of living crisis. I am just wondering why, in the programme for government, the First Minister said that they had been delivered when we know full well that they have not. Regardless of the limited powers that it has, the SNP Government is doing more than elsewhere. The doubling of the free childcare provision to 1140 hours and expanding the provision of universal free school meals were designed to help household budgets, and they have never been more important. I welcome the announcement to extend the provision to primary sixes and sevens. I do not think that anyone in the chamber could suggest that expanding any service is always going to be easy, because it will not be. Whether it is my party in power here, or whether it is Rachel Hamilton's party down at Westminster, but acting and trying to do something is really important as compared to the inaction from the Tory Government in Westminster. The package of five family benefits for low-income families is providing unparallel support for families. I am delighted that the Scottish child payment will increase to £25 per week per eligible child on 14 November, and applications will also open for all eligible under-16s from that date. Following the doubling of the payment to £20 in April of this year, that represents an increase of 150 per cent in less than eight months. Douglas Ross spoke earlier of the national parliament that we aspire to be. I wonder if he was actually thinking about the UK Government's cruel two-child limits. There is also the no cap on the number of children per family who can receive the Scottish child payment. I wonder if Douglas Ross generally was actually comparing what his Government has actually done at Westminster, punishing people as compared to what this Government here has actually attempted to do. I am conscious of the time, so I generally welcome the programme for government. It is probably not a programme for government that the Scottish Government would have envidaged at this time, but it is a programme for government that is essential, necessary, and it is also a programme for government of its time. I now call Jamie Greene to be followed by Arianne Burgess. I appreciate that this year's programme for government comes against the backdrop of what has really been a perfect storm of the worldwide pandemic that we are just coming out of, which effectively paralysed our economies for more than two years, but also an unexpected war, which undoubtedly has pushed prices up, and not just energy either. I think that despite much of the rhetoric that we have heard from the SNP benches today, you would be forgiven for thinking that we do not already have a powerfully devolved government in Scotland, which does have day-to-day responsibilities for many of the aspects of our day-to-day lives, and has had so for over a decade. I would say statistically that it has been a bit of a miserable summer for many people in Scotland, and let me tell you why. We know today that NHS Scotland backlogs and waiting times have reached an all-time high. Just this morning, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine issued a statement, unprecedented in its tone, by saying that the latest figures are the worst since records began and should ring alarm bells in political leaders' ears. They say that the depth and scale of this crisis—and it is a crisis—is deeply concerning. Patients are already coming to harm as a consequence of long and dangerous waiting times, all their words, not mine. I always say to Stuart McMillan that he is right. Too many people may die, but how many of them will die needlessly lying on gurneys in hospital waiting rooms and corridors? How many of them will die waiting to see a consultant when they have been waiting for months or years to see someone to treat their cancer? Those are too many promises that have been made by this Government and too many promises that have been broken. This summer, we learned that the attainment gap remains stubbornly high. We saw public sector strikes, which left our key cities looking like middens, to be quite frank. Our ferry network recorded this summer's highest ever number of mechanical breakdowns—guess what—caused by its ever-aging fleet. However, we heard in topical questions today that ministers cannot answer very straightforward questions and answers about when those ferries will be operationally delivering lifeline services to our island communities. More wirenly, more wirenly, is that violent crime in Scotland has risen to its highest level in five years. Crimes of a sexual nature went up 20 per cent last year, also at its highest levels. It is crime injustice that I want to focus on for the remainder of my speech. Let's start with police funding, because this is the programme for government. Let's look at last year's programme for government, which promised boldly in black and white that it will protect the police resource budget in real terms for the entirety of this Parliament. What a short-lived promise that turned out to be, because we know from the spending review that we heard before recess, that the police are looking at nearly £66 million of real-term funding cuts over the next five years. What does that mean in reality? What are the consequences of doing that? That prompted the police chief constable to make a very rare unprecedented intervention. He warned that the police will face difficult and exhausting choices—choices that have the potential to lead to disruption, to protest and to his harmony. Again, his words are not mine. He cannot be clearer about the consequences of those cuts. I think that today's programme for government will offer scant reassurance to anyone working on the front line in our emergency services, or indeed our entire justice sector. Nor will it be any comfort to those who are actually on the receiving end of rising violent crime in Scotland. What about the 70,000 recorded violent crimes in Scotland last year—the highest since Nicola Sturgeon took office? What about the 14,500 crimes of a sexual nature, or the highest since records began? What about child grooming offences up 80 per cent over five years? What about the 65,000 incidents of domestic abuse—again, the highest on record? You can forgive me for thinking that the justice secretary is completely out of touch when he writes today in the 1919 magazine that Scotland continues to be such a safe place to live. Fine, we'll tell that to the tens of thousands of our fellow Scots who are suffering at the hands of abuse, assault and attack waiting years for their day to get to court. All of that comes against the backdrop of a cut to police numbers falling to their lowest level since 2008. The consequences of that are dire, too. Her Majesty's chief inspector of constabulary warned that there is a real risk of the police becoming paralysed and unable to cope with what it calls unfettered demand. The police federation reiterated that call. They said that cuts to numbers will have a detrimental effect to the public at large and that the police are now, I quote, scrambling around trying to keep the wheels on the bus. I don't blame him for that quote because we learned last week that the police are becoming de facto ambulance drivers due to chronic shortages in the health service. They are essentially picking up the pieces of broken systems, broken devolved systems that this Government is in charge of. Social care, healthcare, mental health and addiction services are all cut as well. I would argue that it is not just irresponsible to cut police funding, it is frankly dangerous in my view. So I do ask, reflecting on this year's programme for government, how can we have confidence that any of the promises that have been made today will actually be delivered? Because the track record is poor. Michelle's law was promised but not delivered. Suzanne's law was promised but not delivered. HMP Sterling promised by 2020 still not delivered. HMP Barlinny and Highland Replacements all promised have now disappeared off the face of the earth. Of course I welcome plans to legislate in a number of areas, it's good to see in their legal services reform, police complaints handling and of course the perennial promise that the Government will finally do something about the controversial not proven verdict but it is what is not in the programme for government which bothers me the most, Presiding Officer. It is disappointing that there is no plans to introduce a specific bill for victims rights. So I would ask that the Scottish Government look favourably and indeed constructively on my own victims bill as I try to progress it through this Parliament but frankly it shouldn't take my victims bill or it shouldn't take Pam Gosel's plans for reform of domestic abuse to make the government act on these matters. Ministers of the power to make those changes now far more quickly and far more easily than any of us could do and it was that in mind Presiding Officer, I do ask the question out there is that will the public have any faith that this SNP green coalition will fund and protect our emergency services and more importantly protect our communities or do people share my very real concern that the First Minister and her ministers have other things on their mind and other priorities between now and next October. On this I'm more than happy to be proven wrong but if today's opening statement by the First Minister is anything to go by, I fear it won't be. Thank you. Thank you Presiding Officer. When Greens came into government through the Butehouse agreement a year ago, one of our main priorities was a new deal for tenants. Although Scotland already has the strongest tenants rights in the UK, the Butehouse agreement set out why we need to go much further to reform renting because housing is a fundamental human right. Everyone has the right to a safe, high-quality home that is affordable, that meets their needs but for many people who rent or want to rent a home this is still isn't the case. That's why last Christmas I warmly welcomed the Scottish Government launching a consultation on an ambitious programme of reform including new tenants rights, higher quality standards, more protection against eviction and rent controls. Put together that seems to me to form the biggest package of reform for a generation. As the PFG confirms all of that work is moving ahead through this Parliament and no doubt beyond but of the last year many of us have also recognised that the scale of the cost of living crisis means we need more urgent action right now, robust, properly worked up and effective action and that is why I am so pleased at today's announcement by the First Minister on the rent freeze and a halt to evictions at until at least the 31st of March. The cost crisis will hurt many, many people but people who rent their homes are some of the most vulnerable to the harsh winter ahead and this is a profoundly serious problem in my region in much of the Highlands and Islands where winter can be particularly harsh housing and energy costs are already sky high. I know many will be dreading what's in store in the coming months. Protecting people from rising rents and losing their homes is the right thing to do as winter looms so it's welcome that this emergency legislation is part of a bigger package of help including assistance with costs from tenant grant funds and discretionary housing payments. A renewed effort must also be made to make sure tenants and landlords know their rights and responsibilities both right now and after the new legislation is passed but we can also do more to help with the wider costs of living. We've already helped with household budgets by doubling child payments and introducing free bus travel for everyone under 22 and I'm proud that this programme for government will implement our shared commitment to increase investment in energy efficiency and renewable heat to make it cheaper and greener to heat your home. Yes, I'll take an intervention. Thank you very much. I thank Ariane Burgess for giving away. Does the member agree with me that welcome though the rent freeze is, it's vital that it includes those rent increases which have been issued but have not yet come into force? Ariane Burgess and I give you the time back. Thank you. Thank you for your questions and I recognise Labour's support for the action and just to say that we were not able to support Labour's proposal in June because it had flaws in the way that it was set out that meant it would not have worked. It had diverse consequences for example prompting evictions. It proposed emergency measures in a bill which was explicitly designed for a post emergency context and so would have made the measures and the bill much more at risk of legal challenge. However, I look forward to Labour's whole heart of support for the PFG and the steps after that and I suggest that maybe you could have a word with your colleagues in Welsh Labour, the one part of the UK where Labour could actually do what the Scottish Government is seeking to do today where Labour is miles off the mark. Regrettably, other challenge changes would make a dent in the cost crisis such as raising minimum wage or reversing the cruel cuts to universal credit but can only be done by Westminster. Instead, the Tories seem obsessed with tax cuts, which will do nothing to help those with the lowest incomes. The new Prime Minister has vowed to approve more drilling in the North Sea instead of investing in clean power from our own renewable resources, recognising how much the cost crisis is a product of fossil fuel addiction in the first place. Scotland is leading the way on a renewable future and we are leading the way on protecting tenants. No other part of the UK is proposing anything close to the ambition that the First Minister has set out on supporting renters. It is part of our journey to join the norm in other European countries, where regulation of rents is built into the way housing works. It is part of our journey set out in the Bute House agreement to make rents not simply the cork that bobs about on the waves of the market but driven by affordability, quality and tenants voices. Today's commitment to a rent freeze and a halt to evictions during this cost of living crisis is the latest example of Greens working with colleagues in government, taking action, making a difference and delivering on our promises. Many of the proposals announced by the First Minister this afternoon are welcome, but they are all long overdue. In many instances, the Government should have and could have gone further and with much more urgency. We had a series of debates on the cost of living back in May in June, but nothing of any substance was put in place. We could have acted then, but instead we were into a parliamentary recess lasting almost a quarter of the year. Parliament could have been recalled here with hours' notice given the scale of this crisis. Labour called repeatedly for that to happen, but not a finger was lifted. Meanwhile, my constituents in Glasgow have been calling my office in tears and have attended my advice surgeries worried sick about the impact this crisis will have on them and their families. Whilst I agree with the First Minister that the Tory Government has utterly failed to grasp the scale of this crisis, consumed as it has been, by a self-indulgent party leadership contest, it makes all the more depressing that this Government here in Edinburgh has also been posted missing all summer. There are measures announced today that I want to welcome specifically. The progress with an initial overdose prevention centre in Glasgow has my full support, and the Government knows that my member's bill intends to complement this effort through a licensing system that will enable rapid scaling up of these facilities nationally. Indeed, my bill consultation closes tomorrow. I also commend the no compulsory redundancy policy, but that is something that should be in place indefinitely within the public sector. I also note with interest the £25 million Clyde mission decarbonisation fund, which does sound promising and I look forward to further detail on that. And whilst I am not convinced that the measures to tackle child poverty go anywhere near far enough or fast enough, I welcome increased funding of any description that will help to tackle child poverty in Scotland. However, inadequate in effect, the redistribution of incomes is across the economy. I also note the announcement of the rent freeze, although I have concerns about the short seven-month length of time and would encourage the Government to extend the minimum period of time well beyond March 2023 to give comfort to tenants about their security. In June, my colleague Mercedes Valba promised and proposed a rent freeze, but was told at that time that it was unworkable by green members. I do not know what is different now and why the Government has suddenly U-turned and why the excuses that we have heard in June are no longer a concern, because the explanations, frankly, we have heard today from previous speakers from the Government benches, have been woefully inadequate and unconvincing by any measure. I think that a lot has to go down to the fact that green members were an open revolt about their parliamentary representatives betraying their confidence in this way. We are three months down the line from that proposal, a quarter of a year. How many tenants have had their rents raised in that period of time? How many landlords have taken advantage of this Government's inertia? We know that rents in Glasgow, for example, are up 41 per cent since 2010, meaning that the average rent in the city is more than £1,000 per month. Meanwhile, wages are down 3 per cent in the same period. I am happy to give way. I thank my colleague Paul Sweeney for giving way. I am sure that Mr Sweeney will join me in welcoming this development from the Scottish Government. Does he not agree that it is also vital that we strengthen the appeal process so that tenants who are faced with unreasonably high rents already are empowered to challenge those at tribunal? Paul Sweeney, again, I can give you the time. I completely thank my friend for that intervention. It is critical that the Government hears that proposal and ensures that the emergency legislation incorporates that mechanism, because I have just outlined that the decoupling of housing costs from incomes is something that is being going on for over a decade in this country, and it is something that we have to address urgently. We are in a crust of living crisis. Months of Government in action has cost hard-pressed tenants money. Although it is welcome that the Government has finally acted on rent freezes, it is utterly unconscionable that we are poorer because of the failure to act three months ago, and that is why we have to address that lag in time urgently. On energy, the Government is right to call for a freeze to this winter's energy costs and the increase in the cap, but the Labour Party agrees wholeheartedly with that approach, but we could be taking action here too. I visited a municipally-run district heating system in Clydebank just a few months ago that could take the entire town of Clydebank off the gas grid. It already provides energy to the Golden Jubilee hospital and numerous public buildings in Weston-Bartonshire, but it cannot be connected to residential properties as there is no funding to do so. I would welcome some clarity about whether that would be eligible for inclusion within the fund about the decarbonisation fund for the Clyde mission that was announced earlier today. It cannot be another half-baked neoliberal programme exploited by foreign state-owned firms such as Vattenfall of Sweden, for example, when it could be a national system of innovation using Scottish companies and owned by the Scottish people and delivering the benefits back into our national economy. We also need to be honest about the scale of the challenge facing the lowest earners in Scotland. Half a million people in Scotland have no money left after covering essential monthly expenses. Over one million people have less than £125 left over every month, and with energy bills, prices in the shops and interest rates all rising, most families in Scotland are going to face the hardest winter in our lifetimes. Although we have had a summer of strikes, the Government has been reluctant to respond unless dragged kipping and screaming from the Edinburgh festival to sort out those problems. We have seen a failure to utilise the leveraging of the public sector and the procuring power of the state to drive up standards across industry. Just one example of that is in the Scotland projects, where the Government has failed completely to make licensing of Scotland contracts a condition for adopting collective bargaining. That has been a gross failure. Although it is good to be back in the chamber, we could have been here all summer taking action, and I have no doubt that we can get through this mess if there is the will to do so, but I just worry that this Government will rather point the finger of blame elsewhere than lift the finger here to help. Thank you very much, Mr Sweeney. We now move to the final speaker in the open debate, after which we will move to closing speeches in all those who have participated in the debate need to be present in the chamber. I call Emma Roddick again for a generous six minutes. Thank you very much. It has been quite a return to Parliament this week. Those of us elected for the first time in 2021 are quite used to dealing with national crises, but it is not every year that we get a new Prime Minister, almost, but not quite. Unfortunately, Liz Truss shows no sign of dealing with these crises any differently to her predecessors. Amongst her early commitments has been the priority to help the rich get richer with tax cuts for high earners at time when public spending really should be increased and her engaging in a contest over who can most strongly deny the democratic will of Scotland. But back to the Government that does have a mandate in this country, the flagship policy of the SNP Government's programme for government is increasing the Scottish child payment, money going straight into the hands of those who need it to keep children out of poverty. I have, like I assume most here, had a very busy recess packed with surgeries and meetings with community groups who are really struggling to support people through this cost of living crisis. I have heard from constituents who are begging their council to cut off their energy supply to avoid being landed with bills that will soon amount to more each month than their rent. Shetland Islands Council has shared particularly stark statistics with me that show that residents of the Isles will need to be on a salary of at least £104,000 a year to avoid being plunged into fuel poverty. That is an extreme example of a reality that is present across my region. People are sitting in chilly homes surrounded by large-scale renewable projects that provide green energy to the rest of the UK wondering how on earth they are going to pay for the rising cost of energy. Things are bleak and it is correct to say that the biggest levers of power that can change this energy policy, social security and borrowing powers lie with Westminster, but that has not stopped this Government from putting money right into folk's hands and doing what it can more than what initially seemed possible to support individuals. As I listened to the First Minister earlier, I struggled to count the number of significant announcements for people in the Highlands and Islands, but the one I am personally most delighted to see is a rent freeze. As Parliament might remember, I had hoped to speak in a debate held right before recess on an amendment that was brought by Mercedes Baalba and to say that I am relieved that a freeze will now be introduced ahead of the new housing bill is an understatement. That is the right thing to do. It prioritises people's safety and security over a private financial gain and it will save lives. I feel for those who have had their rents increased over recent months, but I hope that people can see the value in the peace of mind provided by not having further increases at a time where very few can afford it. I am glad also to hear that the housing bill itself will look at protections in the long term as well as addressing short-term lets and other housing pressures that are devastating communities in the Highlands and Islands. I look forward to scrutinising that in more detail and taking forward evidence that has already been presented to by constituents as well as organisations such as Crisis, Shelter and Living Rent Highlands and Islands on just how bad the situation already is. If communities in my region are going to stand any chance of continuing, if employers, including the NHS, are going to be able to recruit in those areas, we need people to be able to find an affordable place to live and that is sadly not the case in so many of our towns. I want to see my region diversify, use its fast resources and knowledge and be a key player in Scotland's place on the world stage, and that is far from being out of reach, but we need support right now to retain the people that we've got. Right now, it's only possible for those on the highest of salaries to live, work and contribute to these communities. Housing is absolutely at the heart of this, and I think that today's announcement recognises that. On another matter, a constituent shared with me recently how important prima facie, a play that tells the story of a defence lawyer who ends up fighting her own sexual assault case in court, has been both to them personally and in reopening conversation around sexual crimes through popular culture. While based on English law, the running theme that the law does not currently work for victims of sexual assault and rape is still relevant here in Scotland, the law does not work for women. So I sincerely welcome the significant news that the Scottish Government is pressing forward with much-needed changes that have the potential to address that horrendous imbalance and make it possible for a survivor to even imagine that their case might succeed. Change is not easy, and particularly in professions like law and yes, politics, there's a huge fear about fixing something that folk admit is broken but insist it's the way it's always been done, so always must be. And I understand that these reforms will not be easy and will be controversial, but they are worth it and it is personally meaningful to me that the Scottish Government feels it's worth it too. Despite not being that long a document this time, the programme for government this year is packed with good news, and I hope people will read it. And I'm certain that those who do will be wondering whether some of the opposition MSPs today were accidentally reading a memo from Liz Truss instead. Action is being taken here, action is desperately needed from down south too, and I hope that I am shocked and surprised to see that action being taken soon. In the meantime, Westminster and Whitehall are complicit in the extortion of people across this country in the name of disgustingly high profits for energy companies, and it is clear from their failure to provide social security that we cannot afford to remain a part of this United Kingdom. Thank you very much, Ms Roddick. We now move to closing speeches. We still have quite a lot of time in hand and therefore an enormously generous, I think, seven or eight minutes Jackie Baillie. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me focus my closing comments on the cost of living crisis and the current state of our much-loved NHS. Before I do so, let me reflect on the time wasted by both Governments in bringing measures forward. The Tories, we know, have been wholly distracted by the psychodrama that has been their leadership contest. I am glad that it is over. I am sure that they are too, but I am not sure that it is going to make any significant difference, given that we have continuity Boris in number 10. Others have perhaps unkindly mentioned the First Minister's appearance in no less than five fringe shows last month. She must have walked past the rubbish piled high in the streets outside. Public sector workers were fighting for a pay deal that will keep their homes heated and food on the table. However, if they wanted an audience with Nicola Sturgeon, they would have had to buy a ticket at the box office on the Royal Mile. That said, I very much welcome the pay deal that was arrived at, but this was a summer of designer clothes, equity cards and jetting around Europe for the First Minister. Back at home, the biggest single item of concern for people up and down the country was and remains the cost of living crisis. They are scared of being cold, of going to bed hungry, of being unable to pay their rent or their mortgage. They are facing eye-watering increases that are simply unaffordable. I am meeting people who used to donate to food banks. Now they are the beneficiaries of food banks. Prices are going up, but it is not matched by wages. Now some of us, unfortunately, are old enough to remember what it was like in the 70s and 80s with double-digit inflation and houses being repossessed. We are heading that way again. Businesses are in trouble too. Barely recovering from the pandemic, they are now facing increased costs for energy and goods at the same time as football is declining and people are naturally spending less. There is no energy cap for them. Many of them face an uncertain future unless they get help. Scottish Labour set out our plans for an emergency cost of living act that uses devolved powers to provide urgent help, covering a rent freeze, a winter eviction ban, a business hardship fund, a water rebate of £100 for every household, half-price rail fares, funding for money and energy advice, legislation to improve debt solutions, doubling the Scottish child payment and topping up the welfare fund. At a UK level, Labour's plans to freeze the energy price cap this winter would have saved households in Scotland £1,000, including off-grid homes, putting forward real plans to help people at a time of crisis. First Minister, I appreciate that it is a UK Labour position, but could you clarify that it is still a Keir Starmer's position that energy bills should be frozen for just six months? I think that you will find that those were initial proposals. The First Minister is laughing. Until now, she has come up with not one single proposal. What we will do is freeze energy bills because we care about people. We will not dismiss our responsibility and blame it on Westminster, which is what she does all too often. However, we are putting forward real plans. What an achievement is that Labour in opposition is coming up with the solutions that are now being adopted by both Governments, an energy freeze at UK level and rent freezes in Scotland too. Just imagine what we could achieve in power. However, let me be generous in my praise for the U-turn by the SNP on rent freezes and giving credit to Mercedes Villalba, who has pursued this throughout the passage of the coronavirus legislation many months ago. It is her determination that has brought us to this point, and I hope that the Government will be equally bold about other Labour's suggestions in the future. However, how disappointing that the SNP and Greens blocked this at the time, but I always welcome converts. It has to be said that this must be a tad embarrassing for the Greens. We will doubt to deliver the SNP line against something in their own manifesto, acting as a human shield for this Government. Patrick Harvie, I am told, wanted to announce this change of heart at the Green Conference only to have it pinched from him by the First Minister. I really hope that the ministerial Mondeos are worth it because the SNP are having a laugh at your expense. If Patrick Harvie wanted a lesson in how to influence people, I am sure that Mercedes Villalba is happy to take a meeting. We are all agreed that making homes energy efficient is something that the Scottish Government can do. Indeed, it is critical when faced with soaring bills. Why the underspend in area-based schemes for home insulation last year? Why are we heading for an underspend this year? Is it because we have insufficient capacity with installers? Not a single house has been done in the western Isles because the installer is no longer operating. Why has the budget for energy efficiency this year been cut during an energy crisis? Why is the warmer home Scotland scheme heading for an underspend? What a mess. What a missed opportunity. The incompetence is breathtaking, but it gets worse. Energy Action Scotland, an organisation that does tremendous work on fuel poverty, that advises Government, that helped to bring people together for the First Minister's energy summit, had been told during the summer that their Government funding would be withdrawn during an energy crisis. You really couldn't make this up if you tried. I am proud to be an honorary vice-president of Energy Action Scotland, together with Gillian Martin and Murdo Fraser. Indeed, John Swinney is a former honorary vice-president, so he knows the work that they do. I hope that John Swinney will now give a commitment today on behalf of the Government to continue the funding for Energy Action Scotland. I am happy to take an intervention. No intervention, Presiding Officer. That says it all. We know that some people will face a worse winter than others. When a vulnerable person is housebound and unable to move, heating is essential to their physical wellbeing. Yesterday, I met with Caroline Hunter, who cares for a 12-year-old daughter, Freya, at home. Freya requires 24-hour care. Her monthly heating bill will go from £400 to £800 in October and £1,700 in January, but it does not stop there. Freya requires a range of medical equipment that uses up lots of energy and is not fully reimbursed by the NHS. Caroline is facing the prospect of having to put Freya in hospital or in a care home, as she simply cannot afford to keep her at home. That is utterly heartbreaking, but the Scottish Government doing nothing must not be an option. Let me turn to the NHS. I used to say that Humza was missing in action. I was perhaps being too kind. He is simply missing, paralysed by indecision. Meanwhile, 747,000 people as one in eight Scots are languishing on waiting lists with no end in sight. Today, we have the worst A&E waits on record. The First Minister announced £50 million. That has already been announced in June, so there is nothing new there. Of course, delayed discharge has reached a record high since guidance was first introduced in 2016. CAMHS waiting times are getting worse, not better. National treatment centres to help manage waiting lists are delayed. Cancer remains Scotland's biggest killer, yet there are still thousands of people undiagnosed and untreated. The Scottish Government's NHS recovery plan is quite simply not fit for purpose. The pandemic has exposed the problems in the NHS, but the problems all predate Covid and other responsibilities of the Scottish National Party Government. Our heroic NHS staff are at breaking point. They worked hard through the pandemic to care for us and our loved ones, but now they are facing a workforce crisis with more than 6,000 vacancies, low wages and long hours. Frankly, they are exhausted. Simply lining the pockets of private sector agencies to fill the gaps in nursing care is not sustainable. NHS staff need a proper pay deal, and it is time that the First Minister and her Government got serious about this. They have been in power for 15 years, and Scotland is going backwards. Life expectancy is declining. Poverty and inequality levels are rising. The people of Scotland, frankly, are currently being failed by both of their Governments, and what we need is a laser focus on people's needs. Use the power that you have, and act in the interests of the people of Scotland, and do it now. I now call on Liz Smith again for a very generous 9 or 10 minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I do not think that there is any doubt at all that this has been a particularly difficult summer, during which it has not been easy to find any good news. Both the Westminster and Scottish Governments have not had their troubles to seek, and it is painfully obvious to all Members that the public wants their Governments to be fully focused, laser-like, as Jackie Baillie has just said, on the major challenges facing us all. That they want both Governments to talk to each other, to co-operate, and to set aside the constant bickering that does nothing to assuage their concerns about the future. A constituent said to me yesterday that she did not believe that Scottish public cares terribly much about who sorts their energy bills, who picks up their bins, who is responsible for the transport that gets them to work, or who sorts the deeply damaging strikes that have become too familiar across the country. They just want to get it sorted so that they can get on with their daily lives. The First Minister is absolutely right to say that Westminster has a big role to play, it does, but so too does the Scottish Government. It is important that those roles complement each other rather than contradict each other. There has been consensus this afternoon that it is the economy that matters most. It cannot really be any other way in a time of crisis. I want to concentrate on the economy, if I may, starting with this week's very stark economic analysis of where we are in terms of the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecast. A body that earns considerable respect, rightly so, from John Swinney, who perhaps knows better than any of us about the true numbers that are facing his department and therefore the extent of the economic problems facing Scotland. Professor Graham Roy said, and again at the committee this morning, that, although many countries in the world are facing significant economic challenges, Scotland's are particularly acute, and that is pretty clear from just about every aspect of the analysis. The Scottish Fiscal Commission for many months now has been highlighting the issue of weak productivity, which, as Daniel Johnson highlighted in his speech, and I would argue, is the main long-term problem with the economy. True, it is also a problem within the UK economy, but it is worse in Scotland, and as such is putting untold pressures on GDP and our potential for economic growth. That, combined with the demographic issues which tell us that, in the next 50 years, population in Scotland is likely to fall by 16 per cent, with an emphasis on the problems a shrinking working population makes very difficult circumstances for us all. The long and short is that much more needs to be done to ensure that Scotland is a much more attractive place in which to live and to work. That is very much the strong message that is coming from business and industry. We need tax incentives, investment incentives, innovation and skills incentives, because if we do not have those in place, the rest of our endeavours to ensure that society functions well, our wellbeing will not be enhanced. So far, so good, but we also need a sense of real politic about exactly where we are. In the obituaries last week following the death of Mikhail Gorbachev, a giant of European, if not world, history, we were reminded that not only did he understand with Perestroika the need to place the economy at the heart of politics, but also through Glasnost, the importance of democracy. Not just the adherence to the principles that we all treasure, but also the fact that Governments have to accept and respond to criticism. Here is the lesson, because over this summer, the divisions within Scottish politics and, yes, within my own party have been stark. What alarms me as a relative veteran in this Parliament is the negativity and the sometimes vindictiveness that is now pervasive, the promogation of which, and response to, is too often defining the future of our politics. For taking the intervention that is on the point of democracy, do you think that it helps the case for democracy when the new leader of the Conservative party tries to change the goalposts when it comes to referenda? Liz Smith. I think that it is pretty clear from what I have just been saying. I am not in a situation where I am going to take sides. What I am very clear about from the constituents who have been speaking to me, and I am sure that all members are the same, they want our undivided focus on the economy, not on other issues just now. That is not an argument for just now. In fact, the public deserves better. They must have that focus. It is quite right, quite right, and I will say it again that both Governments have to take responsibility for that. Let me address some of the economic issues before I come to some others. As Douglas Ross rightly set out in his remarks, the cost of living issue is urgent. It is urgent now in terms of the direct support, which I hope that people will hear more about tomorrow, but that needs to be accompanied by a fiscal discipline of low tax in a small state. We have become so used to the opposite, both north and south of the border, partly out of response to the Covid pandemic, but also because of our expectations that it is the state now that must be taking responsibility for our lives. That situation cannot be allowed to last. It is also the case that business must have as much certainty as is possible in these very difficult times. That is just one reason why I have been asking the Scottish Government to match the UK Government's pledge to reduce income tax from 20p to 19p in 2024. The SNP knows that, if it does not commit to that, it will mean a lower block grant adjustment. That creates so many issues given the declining tax base in relation to what is happening in the UK, and the SFC forecasts on that are particularly grim. Also, avoiding any increase in the business rate, which incidentally is hinted at in the MTFS, but we want to see that absolutely put in stone, and particularly if in the future we can actually move to reduce it. At the same time, and given the worrying trends in Scotland about weak productivity, we need to do much more to support business on both upskilling and reskilling. We need to be on their side addressing the barriers in the private and public sectors that restrict modernisation, supporting them on employment policy and entrepreneurship. The issue about developing more flexibility in the labour market is a huge one that is again highlighted by the SFC. The SNP has presided over years of labour market structural imbalances, and that is why it is so important that we talk meaningfully and deliver upskilling, reskilling, entrepreneurship and flexible working, because if we don't, then it is going to be a very difficult place and will take away the attraction of investment. Of course, the accompanying aspect of this is improving the delivery of public services, which are so crucial to our communities and to our wellbeing. The delivery of education, health, transport and housing, criminal justice services are all devolved. My colleagues and others across the chamber have set out the long list of failings, which are all within the devolved area of competence and spending, and of course within the context of the block grant that, both in cash terms and in real terms, yes minus the Covid spend was the highest on record. And of course, there is the long list of waste. The millions of pounds of public money, and as Sarwar referred to this in terms of government, that has been scondered on ferries, on going, it seems, on BiFab, on Presswick airport, on the malicious prosecution of rangers, F3 administrators, and so the list continues. And it is exactly why the Scottish Governments, the Scottish Conservatives, believe that this Parliament needs to do something to address the concerns of Audit Scotland to improve scrutiny and the accountability, and that for me includes a finance bill procedure. Waste on this scale is not only inexcusable, but attached to it, there is a huge opportunity cost of where that money could have been spent. Now, Rachael Hamilton quite rightly spoke about the support that is desperately needed to address our fragile rural communities. She highlighted the urgent need for a sustainable future farm policy following the long, protracted consultation period. Support for our islands, which in some cases this year have been completely isolated when it comes to food supplies, to transport to the mainland and to broadband connectivity. Jamie Greene highlighted the significant problems in the justice portfolio, most especially those that reflect the increases in serious crime and those that hither to have undermined the rights of victims as opposed to criminals. Can I wish Mr Greene well in his member's bill? I think that I am finishing. Today's statement and debate have shown just how much there is to do. Westminster does have important responsibility, but so too does this Parliament. Governments need to get on with the jobs that they are elected to do without any distractions or eyes off the ball. The public, for me, deserves nothing less. I now call on the Deputy First Minister to wind up the debate. I would be very grateful, Deputy First Minister, if you could take us up to decision time. I thought that Liz Smith was doing really rather well for most of her speech until the latter part of it, but she did touch on a concept during the speech that she described herself as a veteran of this institution. If Liz Smith considers herself a veteran of this institution, I am not quite sure where that leaves me. I had the horrific experience when I entered a 10,000-metre race after my 55th birthday that I was described as a super veteran on the entry criteria. Being a veteran was bad enough, but a super veteran was a stage too far. She made a plea for a thoughtful and substantive discussion about the issues that we face as a country, because it is beyond crystal clear from the tender of the debate today, from the very different tone about the programme for government document that the Government has produced today, that we are facing an acute and serious challenge to the quality of life of individuals in our country. That comes on the back, often an acute threat to the social and economic wellbeing of our country through the Covid pandemic. If we are going to have that quality of debate, and I am all for having that quality of debate, I think that we have to perhaps recognise that some of the contributions to the debate do not help. To be honest about that, Mr Cole-Hamilton made some comments about the Government's approach to the housing of Ukrainian refugees. 15,757 refugees have been accommodated and welcomed into Scotland, 17,757. The Government committed to welcoming 3,000. Five times as many have been welcomed into our country, representing 18 per cent of the United Kingdom total sponsorship arrivals. I will give way to Mr Cole-Hamilton in a second. Mr Cole-Hamilton attacked and belittled the contribution of people and the Government in Scotland to that effort, and I think that that was a regretful mistake for Mr Cole-Hamilton to make. I will give way to him. I am very grateful to the Deputy First Minister for giving way, but I cannot believe that I have to remind him again that the SNP Government are not the people of Scotland. I was belittling his Government's approach to this, not people, and he needs to wake up to that, because it is a mistake that his Government make time and time again. The SNP are not Scotland. Furthermore, can I ask the Deputy First Minister, can he guarantee that all of the Ukrainians, both in-country and on their way here, with a visa and a promise of home, will have a permanent place to live, or at least somewhere where they can live for at least six months, which is not a hotel, not a cruise ship, not a barracks and not a gym hall? I do not think that Mr Cole-Hamilton really redeemed himself with his response to my intervention there. My point is that the Government is working with our local authority partners and households to lengthen bread to the country to welcome Ukrainian refugees, and if Mr Cole-Hamilton does not have it in him to welcome that whole process in our country, then I think that it says more about Mr Cole-Hamilton than it says about me. Liz Smith also made the point that I, perhaps more than anybody else, know the scale of the financial challenges that we face. I believe that, since I found myself providing maternity cover over the summer for Kate Forbes, that realisation has become ever more significant for me. The housing of Ukrainian refugees, a larger number than we anticipated, raises a financial cost on our budget, which I have to provide, and I think that it is part of our moral duty as a country to provide that, but that has to come out of the block grant. In addition to that, the ministers have spent a great deal of time over the summer trying to secure pay deals, which have been difficult, because members of the public and our public sector workforce are very anxious about their financial circumstances and they quite understand that they want to increase their pay, and the Government has been trying to work with them. We have secured an agreement with the police on their pay, we have secured an agreement with train drivers, and last week, after intensive efforts, we secured agreement with local authority workers. There are a few points that I want to make about the local authority dispute. Members have criticised ministers for not engaging themselves or involving themselves earlier in this process. I would point out that the Scottish Government provided £140 million of additional resources to local authority on a recurring basis to enable a pot of 5 per cent to be offered by local authorities to trade unions, because the Government cannot make an offer to trade unions. We do not employ the local authority workforce, so we provided that £140 million, and the decision of the leaders of local authorities—a majority of them, not SNP leaders—was to offer 3.5 per cent. That was, in my view, supported by the Labour Party and Conservative leaders in COSLA, and it was a provocative and antagonistic act that made the reconciliation of this issue more difficult. The cabinet secretary will recall that the decision taken at COSLA was to offer 5 per cent. That was supported by Labour. The key question is whether you would provide more money. You subsequently have provided a lot more money, and we look forward to that happening for the NHS staff as well. As always, Jackie Baillie has got to be watched very closely with her proximity to accuracy in the comments that she makes. Jackie Baillie knows full well that one Friday the Labour Party and the Conservatives voted by a majority to offer 3.5 per cent when the Government had put enough money on the table to enable 5 per cent to be offered, and if Labour had done that, we would have been in an easier position to resolve the dispute. I make that point about the scale of pay deals, because public sector pay policy was set in the budget at 2 per cent. Clearly, public sector pay is now much higher than 2 per cent, so to go back to Liz Smith's point, I am having to find within the budget significantly more money to fund public sector pay. I cannot, at this stage in the financial year, and I hear all the points that have been raised about this, increase the size of the budget that is available in Scotland. I am prohibited by law to change the tax rates. I do not have the ability—the power—to undertake any resource borrowing to pay for pay deals. We have got to operate within the confines of the existing arrangements, which is why I will be making a statement to Parliament tomorrow, in which I will set out to Parliament why some resources are going to have to be reallocated to meet the cost of public sector pay. Liz Smith has helpfully given me the platform to explain to Parliament today why that is necessary. There is another piece of work that the Government is under way to undertake, which is about trying to ensure that we can maximise the support that is available for people who face the cost of living change. We have rehearsed in this debate the issues about the energy costs, and I think that there has been broad agreement that that is an issue that falls to the United Kingdom Government to resolve because of the reservation on energy and the scale of financial flexibilities that are required to be undertaken. However, this Government will look, as we are doing, through the measures that we have taken already, which have been announced today, measures such as the addition to the fuel and security fund, the expansion of discretionary housing payments, the eligibility changes on the tenant grant fund, all of them practical measures. In addition, of course, to the sizeable investment that has been made in the Scottish child payment to make sure that families will be able to benefit back to the scale of £25 per week per child from the 14th November, which is a huge contribution from this Government to some of the most vulnerable families in our country, a payment that is not available of that type in any other part of the United Kingdom. We are taking concrete and practical steps through our own responsibilities now to support families. If, at the conclusion of the emergency budget review, once I have addressed issues of the cost pressures coming from Ukraine or pay deals or the other issues that I am wrestling with, we will try to do more to support families that are facing difficulty by making further hard choices about the existing financial commitments. I will give way to Pam Duncan-Glancy. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I also thank you, Deputy First Minister. I had pointed the mic down again there, because I was not sure that you were taking it. Thank you for that. We, of course, on these benches welcome the increase in the child payment, which, of course, was announced in the budget in December and the £5 increase was announced in the child poverty plan in March. Those are not new announcements, but what is new is, of course, the bringing forward of it to Mx7 weeks for the commencement date, but that only really does just amount to £35 extra for the kids who currently get the Scottish child payment, £35 in the midst of a cost of living crisis. Does the Deputy First Minister agree that that is enough? If the Scottish child payment did not exist, then those families would be significantly worse off. They are in a stronger position because of the investment that the Scottish Government has made. Just because something was announced in December, the money is not actually in people's pockets yet. It will be in a few weeks' time. At the time, people really, really need the money, and I am glad that the Scottish Government has been able to provide that. A number of comments have been made about the economy and economic performance, and Liz Smith made a number of comments to Daniel Johnson on this point, particularly on the Scottish Fiscal Commission report. One of the critical issues, probably for me, is the critical issue, because I think that that is actually more significant than the challenges about productivity. The challenges about productivity, I think, we can resolve. We can resolve them by the focus on innovation that is in the programme for government. We can resolve them by measures such as the tech scalars. The biggest issue is Scotland's population. Twenty years ago, in this Parliament—I cannot even remember—I do not even think that we were in this building at that time. We were not. The former Labour First Minister, Jack McConnell, brought forward the fresh talent initiative because he was so concerned about the prospect of a declining working-age population in Scotland. He was absolutely correct in 2002 when he brought that forward. As leader of the SNP at the time, I enthusiastically supported the measures that he brought forward. They were correct and necessary. They did not have that much of effect because of the expansion of the EU in 2004, which resolved the issue because of migration. Mr McConnell's sensible intervention was essentially not necessary because EU migration solved our working-age population problems. I will give way. Now, we are learning the hard way about the implications of Brexit, because Brexit has turned off the movement of people coming into this country and our population is projected to decline, and that is the responsibility of the folly of Brexit. I will give way to Liz Smith. Notwithstanding that point, Mr Swinney, the population change in the rest of the UK is not as severe as it is for Scotland. It was also a situation prior to Brexit that there were issues. Does he accept the comments that have been made by a lot of economists and, to some extent, politicians who are arguing that, at the moment, Scotland is not a sufficiently attractive place in which to work and to live? If that is an obstacle to anybody, then we must act to address that. I commit the Government to doing so. However, if you look at the long-term trends about population, Scotland's population challenges have been long-standing. The act of Brexit and the hard Brexit inflicted upon Scotland against our democratic wishes has made our challenge even greater, and we know where responsibility for that lies. Further to Liz Smith's point, I am sure that the First Minister will agree to this, that the increasing Scottish Government's footprint across the world is one way of trying to address the issue of migration of people coming to this country to work and live and to make their lives. Mr McMillan has a point. I heard some of the usual cheerful, grimacing interventions from Mr Lumsden on the Conservative benches, but let me point out to Mr Lumsden if he wants some evidence to substantiate the value of our international presence. It might be the fact that Scotland's position has been reaffirmed as the most successful location in the United Kingdom outside of London for inward investment projects, and it might be to do with the fact that Scottish goods exports excluding oil and gas grew by more than 5 per cent in the two years to the end of March compared to fall elsewhere in the United Kingdom. That is perhaps the evidence of having a voice in the world. Of course, I agree with Mr Lumsden. Douglas Lumsden, I thank the Deputy First Minister for taking an intervention. If everything is so good, why is the Scottish population forecast to fall by 60 per cent and only 2 per cent in the rest of the UK? Surely that is down to his failure and the SNP Government's failure. Deputy First Minister would be grateful if he started whining. It is down to the absolute bone-headed stupidity of Brexit, and Mr Lumsden went awal with it. Liz Smith encouraged the Scottish Government to engage in constructive dialogue with the United Kingdom Government, and we have been trying to do that. First Minister wrote to the Prime Minister many, many weeks ago, asking the Prime Minister to convene a four nations interministerial meeting to discuss the issues of the energy crisis, and the Prime Minister refused to have that discussion. We wait to see what Liz Truss does today, because that is overdue. I wrote to the chancellor several weeks ago, asking for a restatement of budgets to take into account the public sector pay pressure. I wrote about it probably a month ago, but I have not had a reply. There has not been a functioning Government in the United Kingdom. If Mr Sauer does not think that we have been working hard enough, I believe you me, I am exhausted and it is only the first day back in Parliament. We have been working hard to resolve pay deals and a variety of other issues, but the UK Government has been posted missing for the entirety of the summer period. Last night, let me close on this point. A lot has been said in the debate about the fact that the Government should stop talking about independence and the scale of the cost of living crisis. This is a Parliament of different opinions, and we come from different political traditions, and we believe different things. My view of the energy crisis is that there is no clearer example of why Scotland should be an independent country as a consequence of the energy crisis. We live in an energy-rich country where we have virtually 100 per cent capacity to generate a renewable electricity, and we are locked into a UK market that prices our electricity based on the wholesale gas price. What an absolute absurdity. Again, a failing market is about to be bailed out by a United Kingdom Government, having bailed out the financial services sector many years ago. If we look at the lie of the land just now, the arguments are compelling that Scotland has to have the democratic choice of independence so that our country can decide what is best for those who choose to live here. Thank you very much, Deputy First Minister. That concludes today's debate on programme for Governments. It is now time to move to the next item of business, which is decision time. There are no questions to be put as a result of today's business, which therefore concludes decision time. There will be a brief pause before we move to the next item of business.