Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank Neil Gray for advance sight of his statement regarding the very welcome appointments of the Hon Lord Robert Weir and Professor Stephen Wigmore. I also thank him for his very quick and effective engagement with me on this matter during his short time so far in post.

We have all heard—in my case, for 10 years—harrowing stories about the intense and permanent physical and psychological pain of Eljamel’s patients and of families being broken apart. We have heard heartrending accounts of victims trying to get to the truth, only to be knocked back at every turn.

During those 10 years, I have dealt with no fewer than seven health secretaries and, although I do not for a minute doubt the sincerity of their sympathy for what patients have had to endure, there have been far too many instances of dither and delay, all of which have, understandably, served to heighten patients’ anxiety that there was some sort of cover-up.

In short, we should have been at the start of the public inquiry long before now. Although the work will now be within the remit of the judge, and, quite rightly, independent of Government, will the cabinet secretary provide a categorical assurance to Parliament that he will review the process by which the Scottish Government oversees the work of its health boards, and develop a foolproof process by which there is full transparency of the decisions that are made, both clinical and administrative, and full disclosure of who has been involved in those decisions?

When a major committee of this Parliament concludes that it is concerned that the Scottish Government has, so far, been unable to articulate and communicate a model of how some proposed new legislation would operate, that is hardly a ringing endorsement. It is worse still for something that is supposed to be one of the most important pieces of legislation that the Parliament has seen.

Both the minister, Maree Todd, and First Ministers Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf argued that the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill was to be a flagship piece of legislation. Indeed, in their words, it was to be

“the most ambitious reform of public services since the creation of the NHS”.

That is quite a pledge. I do not doubt the Scottish Government’s ambition, but, in the usual way with legislation, particularly given the flagship nature of this bill, we should have had the right to expect a well thought-out, wholly coherent and well costed bill. We should also have had the right to expect a fully watertight scrutiny process that would give committees and parliamentarians the maximum opportunity to engage in detailed scrutiny, but that has not been the case. It is not the case with the structure of the bill and it is not the case with the costings, which I will come to in a minute.

The first iteration of the bill faced considerable criticism from no fewer than four parliamentary committees: the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, the Public Audit Committee and the Finance and Public Administration Committee. There was no clarity whatsoever about the related costs, which is why, as Kenny Gibson rightly said, the Finance and Public Administration Committee would not accept the first financial memorandum. It was also why the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee raised concerns. Just as importantly, the bill faced widespread criticism from local authorities and health service stakeholders. In short, the bill was in deep trouble last summer, including in the view of some SNP MSPs.

Given those circumstances, Maree Todd was well told that there must be a major rethink. What did we get? We got three changes to the bill, two of them very major. There would no longer be any transfer of local authority staff and assets, and there would be no new care boards for each of the 32 local authorities. To accompany those changes, there was a second attempt at a financial memorandum, which was marginally better than the first but still did not satisfy the Finance and Public Administration Committee, as its members have made clear.

There are also issues regarding parliamentary scrutiny. The Scottish Government has made substantial changes to the accountability and governance provisions in the bill, but it has not provided detail in the legislation of what those changes will look like. The finance committee has particular concerns about the lack of detail on the new national care board. The minister tells us that the bill is only a framework bill and says that she will share the detail of governance and accountability provisions should the general principles of the bill be agreed to, but that is unusual territory and is not something that we feel makes for good legislation.

Framework bills have suddenly become quite fashionable here. If I was being charitable, I would say that that is because of the principle of co-design, which allows ministers and stakeholders to work together to design bills. I will come back to that idea. If I was being less charitable, I would say that the Scottish Government is finding it impossible, for whatever reason, to produce the detail that Parliament needs.

If, as someone who has been here for a long time, I may be allowed to say so, having too many framework bills on the statute book presents a scrutiny problem. That might be an important issue to consider when the Presiding Officer looks at parliamentary reform, because, as Jackie Baillie rightly pointed out, we cannot have bad legislation.

The finance committee remains very sceptical about the co-design process—not in principle, because there are many good things about co-design, but because of the lack of estimates to allow measuring of the economic benefits as set against projected costs. It is also sceptical about how to measure the co-design costs at all, given that that process is still on-going. We feel that the co-design process should have been completed before the revised bill was brought to Parliament.

We know that having a framework bill has been roundly criticised by stakeholders and Parliament committees because of the lack of detail about what would appear in primary legislation and what might appear in secondary legislation. That is not good enough and it is why, during the first iteration of the bill, committees put their scrutiny concerns on record, with the DPLR Committee making what I thought was a revealing comment when it said that the Scottish Government’s approach is

“unacceptable and risks setting a dangerous precedent, undermining the role of the parliament.”

I will say that again. It risks

“undermining the role of the parliament.”

I have said before that I can remember occasions when there were issues with financial memoranda. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and college regionalisation are two examples, but they were not so out of kilter with the ambitions of the bill that was presented, so lacking in detail and so risky to taxpayers.

The Scottish Government, yet again, is guilty of negligence when it comes to the provision of baseline evidence to support the policy basis of a bill. One wonders how on earth ministers ended up in this situation.

To ask the Scottish Government what analysis it has conducted of the potential impact of the proposed non-domestic rates public health supplement on large retailers, as set out in its 2024-25 Scottish budget. (S6O-03144)

Actually, it is not a surprise, because I think that we both have exactly the same views about the importance of scrutiny in the Parliament.

Does Jackie Baillie agree that we seem to have a tradition in the Parliament of having too many framework bills, which means that we do not have enough time to scrutinise, because we do not have the necessary detail?

I am entirely in agreement with what Jackie Baillie is saying.

I do not think that Mr Swinney was listening just now, which is most unlike him—[Interruption.] Was he listening? I do not think so. I spoke clearly about the top priorities, but that does not mean to say that one is not going to agree with other things. The level of priorities is the fundamental point of discussion in respect of the whole budget. That is not just a policy divide but a philosophical divide, because that debate matters, as does the future prosperity of Scotland.

Yet again, I want to put on the record why our approach, on the Conservative side of the chamber, is about priority for jobs, investment, economic growth, reducing the tax burden, supporting local government and ensuring that there is lasting public sector reform.

In recent days, the cabinet secretary and various ministers—and even Ross Greer, in the latest debate that we had—have said that they have a lot of respect for Sandy Begbie, but they disagree with him when he says that the current Scottish Government tax policy threatens to make Scotland

“a dangerous place to be rich or create wealth”.

The trouble for them, however, is that virtually all the people who are most likely to be able to deliver sustainable growth actually agree with Sandy Begbie.

Mr Swinney has just reeled off some of the Scottish Government’s successes on capital spend. Does he acknowledge that there has also been a huge category of failures because of the waste that the Scottish Government engaged in on several really big commitments, such as those on the ferries, Burntisland Fabrications and a range of others? Had those been successful, we would have had an awful lot more money in this budget.

I know full well that there are concerns within our party about the comments that are forthcoming from so many in the business community about the increasing tax differentials and the difficulty that they are presenting to Scotland in terms of recruiting new labour, which we desperately need in Scotland’s powerhouse industries. We cannot get some of those people. Those are not our comments; they are coming from across the business community, right, left and centre. That is why the budget has had such a negative reaction.

By the same token, the cabinet secretary is well aware that, had the Scottish economy grown at the same rate as the UK economy, we would have had £6 billion of extra money to spend. Given that angle, I am not going to accept that line.

I will finish by making a couple of other points. It is important that we understand what creates the dynamism, aspiration, innovation and invention that mean that Scotland has so much potential to offer. At the moment, the budget has left Scottish business and industry in a state of despair. I put it as strongly as that—they are in despair. They are well aware of the difficulties that the Scottish Government is in, but they just feel that the whole budget has been anti-growth.

I therefore leave the budget with the cabinet secretary, who should have another think about what on earth we are going to do to mend the big black hole in the Scottish Government’s finances, and also to inspire Scotland to get the best out of everything that we should be able to do, without all the barriers and hindrances that the Government has put in its place.

Will the cabinet secretary give way?