 Rwy'n meddwl i'r byw gwreidio angen i niw. Rwy'n meddwl i'r byw gwreidio angen i niw. Rwy'n meddwl i'r byw gwreidio angen i niw. Rwy'n meddwl i'r byw gwreidio angen i niw. Efallai y mae'r�ilaeth y Scottish Government yng Nghymru yn rwyaf i ddweud yr adnoddau o'r ysgrifennu oedd yn y Tynedd aeth ar y bobl aeth. Rwy'n meddwl i'n meddwl i'n meddwl i dda ni'n meddwl i ddweud o'r ddeutu o'r pleidigus o'r Cysylltu Feoulau面gol yn siarad gyda'r wedi'i'r gwaith o phamol yng ngrysiau ac 곳byddai'r cerdd, ac oherwydd Cymru yn cynnwys gael iawn o'r lleiwng iawn. Ond oes y cyfnodau ar gyfer gwybod, nid arweinydd o'r cyfnodau gael ei gweld. Fyngom i gweithio bod chweithio ynghorion a'r cyfnod i gael o'r llwyffadau gwysig o'r lleiwg yn gwneud o'r pethau, oherwydd yntafell, gyda ddisgrifendu arless yn 203 p.m. o'r wne shortly on a Friday afternoon when it was not? When the Government was advising people to leave work early due to adverse weather conditions. Instead of trying to bury bad news, the Government could and should have given prior notice to families and staff that a decision of such importance was imminent and would be announced directly to Parliament. You cannot consider whether the use of Government inspired questions was appropriate in that case, and that there-use by the government to make such announcements is reviewed. Can you also confirm that no request by the minister for a statement was made to you on Thursday under rule 13.2? This decision should have been announced to this Parliament in this Parliament, and surely the way the Scottish Government has chosen to announce this closure is both discourteous to members but, more importantly, deeply disrespectful to those who depend on the kids' word at the RAH. I thank the member for the advance notice of the point of order. As the member will be aware, the guidance on announcements sets out good practice that should be followed by the Scottish Government when informing the Parliament. It is intended to help the Scottish Government to decide which method is appropriate to make an announcement. I raised the member's concerns about this particular issue at today's bureau meeting. We had a useful discussion about decisions more generally on which method to use to make an announcement. The bureau has made its views known, and that will help to inform future decisions by the Government. In this case, the bureau has agreed to schedule a ministerial statement on this issue this afternoon following topical questions. That will allow members to question the Cabinet Secretary on the decisions that are made. I now invite Joe FitzPatrick to move the business motion on behalf of the bureau. Thank you very much. Does anybody object to the motion? No. In that case, the question is that we agree motion 10053. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. We turn now to topical questions. Presiding Officer, to ask the Scottish Government what action it will take to ensure that everyone in police custody can exercise their right to legal advice from 25 January 2018. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I refer members to my entry in the register of inches wherein they will find that I am a member of the Lost Society of Scotland, that I hold a practising certificate, albeit that I am not currently practising. Part 1 of the Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2016 introduces increased rights of access to legal advice for people being held in police custody. Those provisions followed recommendations within Lord Carlywy's review of Scottish criminal law and practice and wide public consultation. The bill was passed unanimously by Parliament in December 2015. Since then, there has been extensive engagement with legal professionals through the Law Society of Scotland and local representative groups. Regulations to ensure a significantly enhanced package of legal aid funding is available for private solicitors, providing police station advice under the new arrangements. Those were approved by the Scottish Parliament last month. The regulations introduced a new block fee system, a simplified process for claiming for police station advice and are an increase on existing rates. Police station advice is provided through a combination of solicitors in private practice who opt to be part of the police station duty scheme and solicitors employed directly by SLAB, the Scottish legal aid board. Where private solicitors have chosen to not participate in the current or the new scheme, SLAB has confirmed that it will handle requests for police station advice through the 599 private solicitors who remain on the duty scheme and its own employed solicitors on the solicitor contact line and the public defence solicitor's office. That will ensure that appropriate access to legal advice is available for those in-police custody from 25 January. I thank the minister for that detailed response. Those are indeed big changes for the police and those tasked with ensuring that everyone has the legal advice that they need at every stage of the justice process. Given recent developments and the serious concerns that are expressed from the borders to Moray and beyond, what assessment has the Scottish Government undertaken of how many people are expected to be working on the provision of legal advice for those in-police custody on day 1 of the new scheme the day after tomorrow? How does she respond to the suggestion by DCC Livingston at Justice Committee this morning that some people may have to be moved between police stations to facilitate access to a solicitor? I would say that there has, of course, been contingency planning in place for some considerable time as informed by the Scottish Legal Aid Board in terms of the arrangements that had to be put in place to implement part 1 of the 2016 act. In addition to the 599 private solicitors available for the on-call duty scheme that I referred to in my first answer, there are currently 13 contact line solicitors working issue pattern and 24 PDSO solicitors. All matters are currently and will continue to be, as would be expected, under close monitoring to ensure that we have all necessary arrangements in place. In response to the question that the member raised about DCC designate in Livingston at his evidence session this morning before the Justice Committee, we are confident in general that access to legal advice will be available in whatever location someone has held in police custody without any need for them to be moved. As part of sensible contingency planning, if there were particular circumstances where it was absolutely necessary, as is the case under the current arrangements, it is possible to move someone held in custody to ensure access to legal advice. However, as I say, we do not expect that to be required as part of the normal duty arrangements. The minister Ian Moyer of the Law Society this week said that falling pay rates and the difficulty of balancing on-call work with family life was leading to a significant fall in those willing to take on legal aid work. The review of legal aid announced last February was expected to take a year. It was established to engage with the legal profession and come up with, quote, specific measures to reform Scotland's system of legal aid, maintaining access to public funding for legal advice and representation. Can the minister tell Parliament when she expects that review to report? Yes, I would just clarify, of course, that the police station duty scheme is entirely voluntary and no solicitor needs to participate in. Even those who do sign up for it are not required to make themselves available 100 per cent of the time. Of course, we have also extended the definition of the antisocial hours premium, and we have extended that not simply to telephone calls but also to travel, which was not a matter that was requested by the Law Society of Scotland in my negotiations with it. Finally, in terms of the legal aid review, we expect that to report next month. Can the minister confirm that discussions have been held with the Scottish legal aid board and whether it feels comfortable with the changes being made to the provision of legal aid? Officials have been closely engaged with the Scottish legal aid board about the delivery of the Act provisions. SLAB has engaged directly with the profession on both the implications of the new rights and the capacity of the profession to deliver. The operational capacity to deliver is being continuously assessed, as is normal practice for the current arrangements, and SLAB is comfortable with the changes being made and the ability to deliver on those new rights. Gordon Lindhurst I follow the minister's comments about the intricacies of that, but I think that the Law Society has said that, for the extension of the right of a solicitor present to work and practice, legal aid rates will require to increase significantly for this additional work. In light of that, does the minister agree that that adds to the case for legal aid reform and that the timing of that being implemented now before the report that my colleague referred to is unfortunate, at the very least? I will respond to the points that were raised. First, part 1 of the legislation that I referred to, the 2016 Criminal Justice Scotland Act 2016, is due to be enforced on Thursday of this week. Obviously, it would have been irresponsible of us not to have had in place legal aid arrangements reflecting the new arrangements. As I said in my response to Lee MacArthur, the legal aid review is expected to report next month, and it would perhaps just be important for the record to state that, of course, we listened to the Law Society of Scotland's negotiating team and we did increase the block fee rate. We did extend the definition of antisocial hours premium. We extended that not just to telephone calls but to travel, which was not even requested in the discussions with the Law Society, and we increased our offer. We believe that our offer was a good one. We see, of course, that many, many private solicitors have decided to remain in the police duty scheme. To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Oxfam report, reward work, not wealth and what action it has taken to tackle inequality. I welcome the Oxfam report, reward work, not wealth, which makes a range of recommendations to Governments and international institutions. We are committed to working to reduce inequality and protecting human rights within the limited range of our powers. We have already set concrete time-bound targets to reduce inequality through the Child Poverty Scotland Act and will publish our first delivery plan by April 2018. In this year's draft budget, we set out proposals for a progressive income tax policy, allocated £179 million in 2018-9 through the attainment Scotland fund and increased funding for the NHS. Beyond that, we are taking a wide range of actions to tackle poverty and inequality, including almost doubling the provision of free childcare by 2020, delivering at least 50,000 affordable homes over this parliamentary term and enacting the fairer Scotland duty from April 2018, ensuring that public bodies take due account of poverty and disadvantage whenever key decisions are made. Gillian Martin, I thank the cabinet secretary for that answer. The report highlights growing global disparity between the richest and poorest in society, with 82 per cent of all the world's wealth created in the last year going to the top 1 per cent and nothing going to the bottom 50 per cent. Oxfam calls on Governments to create more equal societies, aiding ordinary workers and smaller businesses. Can the Scottish Government set out how, with the limited powers that it has, it is moving Scotland towards a more egalitarian and fairer society? Does the cabinet secretary agree that Scotland could be seen as an example to other countries around the world to follow? The important point about leading by example was reflected in the comments made by Dr Catherine Trebek, Oxfam's senior researcher, who is based in Glasgow, when she said that her ideas can be big and can resonate beyond our borders. For this Government, tackling inequality is not some optional extra, it is part and parcel of everything that we do. In addition to the actions that I outlined in my original response in and around the implementation of how we are taking forward our duties under the new child poverty act, we are obviously taking very clear action to close the wealth gap associated with gender segregation rules. We are working very hard to support carers. There is our investment in affordable housing, as well as our labour market strategy and the work that we do across the Government to support inclusive growth in our economy. Gillian Martin I thank you once again for that answer, the cabinet secretary. Once you get to expand, the key finding of the report is that women are in the worst work and almost all super-rich are men. In a year that saw billionaires have fortunes grow by $762 billion, women provided $10 trillion to the economy in terms of unpaid care throughout the world, and while we might not be able to solve this global problem ourselves, can the Scottish Government set out how it is leading the way in closing the wealth gap associated with gender segregated roles in Scotland, and ensuring that caring is valued? Cabinet Secretary, there are a number of actions that this Government is indeed taking forward. We are big supporters of family-friendly working Scotland partnership. It was a partnership between working families, which is a leading UK work-life balance organisation, parenting across Scotland and the Fathers Network. The reason for that work is to support and promote the development of family-friendly workplaces, which will indeed have a big impact on women, although not exclusively women. It is important for Fathers and parents, too. Fair pay is also at the heart of our planned expansion of the early years in childcare, and we will enable payment of the living wage to all childcare staff delivering the funded entitlement by 2020. There is other work that we are doing to support unpaid carers in terms of enabling them to be better supported to look after their own health and wellbeing, as well as the carer positive scheme, which is about supporting employers to support their employees who also have caring responsibilities. Elaine Smith Thank you, Presiding Officer. As Oxfam highlighted this week, the wealth gap is widening, including in Scotland, and, meanwhile, the Government has cut funding to lifeline public services. As the cabinet secretary aware that Dr Catherine Trebek of Oxfam said yesterday that the strain of yawning inequality is also being felt in Scotland and that this is not a far away crisis, it is grimly apparent that the inequality crisis is out of control, when will the cabinet secretary take the necessary steps to address this crisis here in Scotland, including asking the richest in our society to pay their fair share and lift and shift the balance of economic wealth to the many rather than the few? The Cabinet Secretary for Economy and Fair Work Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. It is important to recognise that the report focuses on world-wide inequality and makes a number of recommendations to Governments and international institutions. The actual report in terms of my reading did not make any specific mention of Scotland. Nonetheless, we welcome the report. It is fair to reflect that the recommendations would cut across both devolved and reserved power. It is also important to recognise that 60 per cent of Scotland's spending power is still dependent on Westminster decisions. Nonetheless, we are absolutely determined to utilise all the powers and opportunities that are available to us in this Government to address poverty and inequality in this country. That is not just the right thing to do, it is absolutely the smart thing to do, it is reflected in our aspirations around inclusive growth, our labour market strategy, our fair work commitments and it is also reflected in the work that we will take forward to end child poverty, given that we know that children are poor because of the lack of income in their families or their household. That will indeed mean that we will have to use all the powers that are disposed to tackle structural inequality that exists in Scotland. Of course, we look forward to the advice from the new independent poverty and inequality commission. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to reduce the number of disabled people on housing waiting lists. The Scottish Government wants disabled people in Scotland to have access to homes that enable them to participate as full and equal citizens. Our disability delivery plan sets out a number of housing-related commitments that support that ambition. That includes the requirement for each local authority to include a realistic target for the delivery of wheelchair-accessible housing as part of its local housing strategy and to report annually on its progress. We are also working with health and social care partnerships, disability organisations and the housing sector to ensure that those in need of adaptations to their home can access those services. An investigation by the independent has revealed figures obtained from councils indicating that almost 10,000 disabled people are on waiting lists, but many of those people are stuck in unsuitable council houses and are still on waiting lists, requesting a move five years on and much greater numbers than that. Does the minister agree that it is intolerable for any person to be trapped in their home that does not suit their needs? Does the minister not agree that it is time for today's more dramatic action to serve those people who need a move to a more suitable accommodation? As I said in my first answer, local authorities have a key role in planning for the housing needs of everyone in their community, including those who require housing that is wheelchair-accessible. I think that people should have the homes that suit their needs. Work is under way to develop guidance for local authorities and other stakeholders on the need to set that realistic target of delivery for wheelchair-accessible housing across all tenures and not just social housing. That will be incorporated into the revised local housing strategy guidance, which will be reviewed later on this year. At this moment, the latest available statistics show that 91 per cent of the housing that we are delivering in our housing programme is housing for varying needs, and that is welcome. I expect that standard to continue. I also met housing conveners at COSLA this morning and reiterated what I have said previously about subsidy levels for wheelchair-accessible housing, where we will be flexible and, beyond that, I have asked them to take account of their waiting lists to see exactly what housing is required to reach that realistic target that we all want to see. I welcome that answer. Will the minister acknowledge that people with disabilities who struggle to find suitable housing are not just a question of those in wheelchairs, but a whole range of people with walking difficulties and breathing difficulties who need ground floor properties need to be recognised? Does the minister not believe that there is now time for a more specific strategy that ensures that, for example, the model that Glasgow has adopted, where more than 20 units have been built, that 10 per cent of those units should be readily adaptable? Does the minister think that that might be a way forward, given that he has made commitments to meet in the past, till he will think seriously about concrete proposals to make sure that we are not in this position at the end of this Parliament? I do not want to be dictatorial to local authorities, because each local authority has to assess its own needs. During the Christmas and New Year holiday period, I spent a long time looking at council's strategic housing investment plans. For example, Angus Council has worked out that its requirement for specialist housing is 16 per cent of the houses that it is building. I do not want to be prescriptive in that, but what I want—as I said earlier, I reiterate it again to housing conveners today—is for them to assess well exactly what is required. In some cases, that is easier for councils who have their own council housing, because they can make assessments from waiting lists about what is required. However, I would also expect councils who do not have their own housing to co-operate with housing associations to see exactly what is required in their area. As I said previously, the Government will be flexible about subsidy on those issues, because I, like Ms McNeill, want to see more housing for specialist needs, whether that be wheelchair accessible or for varying needs, as I stated earlier. Finally, to members and to people out there, we have a really good service in Scotland, Housing Option Scotland, which will help disabled and older people with advice and advocacy on their housing needs. I urge all members to use that service if they deem it appropriate.