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Plenary, 05 Dec 2002

Meeting date: Thursday, December 5, 2002

Official Report 682KB pdf

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First Minister's Question Time

The next item of business is First Minister's question time.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I draw to your attention the edition of The Scotsman from Monday 2 December, in which Mike Russell stated that he would use First Minister's question time today to demand assurances from the Executive on theatre funding. [Interruption.] I am trying to make a serious point.

Order. Let me hear the point of order.

Unless Mr Russell is now operating under the title, "Mystic Mike", how would he know that his question would be selected for today? Will the Presiding Officer give us an assurance about the criteria for the selection of questions and will he assure us that there was no prior agreement to select Mike Russell's question for the First Minister today?

In the first place, I did not see that report on Monday morning. If I had seen it, it might have tempted me not to select the question. I do not know when the question was lodged, but questions are not selected until Monday afternoon and The Scotsman goes to bed on Sunday night, so perhaps Mike Russell is Mystic Meg.

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Secretary of State for Scotland (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister when he next plans to meet the Secretary of State for Scotland and what issues he intends to discuss. (S1F-2313)

I met the Secretary of State last week and I will see her again tomorrow when I will take the opportunity to discuss with her the meeting that she and Ross Finnie have had this week with Scottish fishing organisations. Today, we welcome to our Parliament campaigners from the fishing communities in Scotland. I assure them of our support to secure both a sustainable stock in the North sea and sustainable communities in Scotland's fishing areas.

I thank the First Minister for his answer and I welcome his comments.

I wonder whether the First Minister has taken an interest this week in opinion polls. If so, he will have seen a poll showing that 94 per cent of Scots believe that the fishing industry is important to Scotland's future—a conclusion that, I am sure, is shared throughout the chamber. We are told, as the First Minister has just told us, that one part of the Scottish Executive is fighting to save the fishing industry, while another part—the Scottish Prison Service—is trying to recruit fishermen in the north-east of Scotland with the rather crass slogan:

"Not all careers float away with the tide."

Will the First Minister reassure Scotland that that disgraceful propaganda does not represent the view of his Government and that the Executive will pull out all the stops to save Scotland's fishing industry?

There is no doubt in my mind that that was a crass and insensitive advert and an apology could not have been issued too quickly, because it is important to deal with such incidents quickly.

The main issue today is that we in this Parliament are most effective when we are united. In the next fortnight, we need to be united and strong in ensuring that our fisheries minister can go to Brussels, argue on behalf of the fishing communities and deliver a result in what will be very difficult circumstances.

In that spirit, I say to the First Minister that he will be aware that a new regime for fishery management will be introduced on 1 January. That regime will give much greater influence to countries with a direct interest in particular fisheries, and in this case the North sea fishery. Does the First Minister agree that it is essential that the European Union negotiations later this month, which will seek to secure a long-term future for the industry, should be carried out under that new regime rather than under an old system that has always failed the Scottish fishing industry?

We must deal with the reality of the situation, which is that the decisions will be made at a meeting that will take place in two weeks' time. For a number of weeks, our job in the Parliament has been to ensure that, if possible, we build a consensus with those in Scotland's fishing industries and within the Parliament for a strategy that has the right solutions and that wins enough support among our European partners to enable the right decision to be secured in December. That will not be an easy task.

Anyone who thinks that if we simply make demands all the other European countries will fall into line is wrong. We must ensure that we have the right arguments and that we work well in advance of the European Council to put forward those arguments and win support. If we do that, we can be as successful as we have been in the past.

My point concerns the difference between conducting the negotiations on 20 December under an old regime that will come to an end on 31 December and conducting them under a new regime that will come into place on 1 January, which will give much greater decision-making power to those with a direct interest in the North sea fishery. Will the First Minister assure us that he would support a plan that would give much greater significance to a North sea management plan and that he would support the production of such a plan by participant countries at a future European Council in the new year? Will the First Minister instruct his fisheries minister to lodge such a proposal at the meeting in December?

There is a difference here between rhetoric and reality. The meeting in December will make the relevant decisions. We must influence those decisions here and now. We should not pretend that an easy solution can be obtained by postponing until another day.

I see that Mr Welsh is about to say something. He should be cautious for a second. I support regional management of the fisheries and a North sea management plan. A North sea management plan would still involve the Danes, for example, who are involved in the practice of industrial fishing that we want to tackle. The issues remain the same whether we are talking about the whole European Union or a North sea management plan.

We must ensure that the right decisions are taken in December, that we sustain a stock in the North sea and that we sustain our fishing communities. As I have said, we need to be united in that approach. We also need to ensure that we have regional implementation of those fishing plans to secure a better system for the future.

All that I am asking the First Minister to do is to give an agreement that he will at least put on the table the proposal that I have made to the Parliament. Will he do that?

We are trying hard, and have been trying hard for weeks, to secure a consensus in the Parliament that backs up the fisheries minister when he represents our country in Brussels and seeks to secure a future for Scotland's fisheries. We have sometimes made such efforts in difficult circumstances and in the face of provocation.

Solutions that attempt to put off decisions until another day will not work at the European Council. We need to win the argument now. We are taking on that argument and working with the fishing organisations and the representatives of fishing communities, some of whom are here again today, to obtain the best solution for Scotland that it is possible to obtain in a majority vote situation in the European Council.

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Cabinet (Meetings)

To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet. (S1F-2325)

The agenda for next week's Cabinet meeting will be agreed later this week.

I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Mr McLetchie on the award that he won last week. I look forward to debating with him again in the future.

Thank you very much.

The First Minister will recall that, at question time five weeks ago, when some people were more concerned about the petty cash in Mr McConnell's local Labour party, I asked him about the crisis that was facing Scotland's fishing industry. That crisis is obviously still facing the industry. With the benefit of five weeks' hindsight, will the First Minister acknowledge that far too many people are responsible for fishing within the EU institutions and within the United Kingdom Government, which appears to have already accepted a case for bans and major quota cuts and which is talking the language of compensation—the language of defeat?

Will the First Minister encourage Mr Finnie and the other members of the UK delegation to the fisheries council to challenge that kind of defeatist mentality and demand measures that will sustain our communities rather than simply manage their decline?

As I said in my previous answers, we need to be serious about this subject in the chamber. It is easy for those who are not required to go to Brussels and make the case to say that we should not make what are sensible proposals. Those proposals will do the two things that are important. First, they will conserve stocks in the North sea, so that our fishing communities have an industry years and years from now. Secondly, they will ensure that we have fishing communities with a strong fishing industry in the meantime. Both those objectives run side by side. Ross Finnie's discussions have been aimed at achieving those objectives. That is why it is important that we enter into positive discussions with our European partners and with others. That is also why we have the full support of the UK Government in doing so.

I accept what the First Minister says about the need both for a short-term decision to be reached and for the longer-term issues concerning fisheries conservation to be dealt with.

I want to ask about that slightly longer-term agenda. The last time that we discussed the issue at question time—and again today, if I heard him correctly—the First Minister spoke about his support for regional management of our fisheries. Yesterday in the Westminster Parliament, his colleague Anne Begg spoke of the need to reform the common fisheries policy with what she called zonal management. Does the First Minister accept that such semantics perhaps miss the point, which is that what is needed in the longer term is national control of our fisheries? Our fishing communities managed to sustain themselves for hundreds of years without a common fisheries policy but it is apparent that they are now being destroyed by the CFP. Would not it be more appropriate for their destiny to be put back in their own hands, as part of a longer-term reform?

We are not in the business of renegotiating European Union treaties in the next 12 days or, for that matter, of looking to long-term solutions that come from the Conservative party's obsession with breaking up bits of the European Union. The situation is that we have a common fisheries policy, so we need to deal with the here and now by conducting the negotiations in the interests of Scotland.

We said weeks ago that we would secure the agreement of the UK Government—I remember both Opposition parties being sceptical about that—but that is what we now have. Yesterday, the Prime Minister endorsed our strategy and our campaign.

We also said that we would negotiate and deal in bilateral discussions with those other European countries with which it might be possible to secure a common interest. We have done that. Ross Finnie had those meetings and discussions in Brussels last week. We are working hard to ensure that we have more support.

We need a longer-term approach to secure a change in the way in which the European Union conducts its business in fishing and in other areas. We need more regional representation and more rights for regions and for nations to ensure that decisions that are made at a European level are properly implemented locally. Those are our objectives in the shorter and longer terms. I believe that they are right.

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Racist Attacks

To ask the First Minister what measures the Scottish Executive will take to deal with any increase in the number of racist attacks. (S1F-2321)

I want to make it clear that racist attacks have no place in today's Scotland. We are committed to challenging racism, whatever form it takes and wherever in Scotland it occurs.

Where cases are reported, the Lord Advocate has made clear his commitment to ensure that the police and procurators fiscal improve the prosecution of racist crime.

Will the First Minister join me in making it clear to the Parliament that asylum seekers will continue to be made welcome in Sighthill? I want to make it clear that those who carry out racist attacks are not welcome in Sighthill. I also want to make a plea to the media, to Government agencies and to all political parties that are represented in the Parliament to recognise the positive work that is being done in Sighthill with asylum seekers. We need to face up to the continuing challenges and ensure that we deal with them.

I endorse what Paul Martin has said. I praise him and all the community organisations in Sighthill for the work that has been undertaken to secure a much better community atmosphere in that area so as to provide a welcoming environment, not only for asylum seekers but for others in Sighthill.

The situation is very clear. If Scotland's economy is to grow, if we are to be proud of our country as we travel throughout the world, and if we are to have a society that we can be proud of in the 21st century, we must deal with racism, sectarianism and the other blights on our society. We have to tackle them head on and make it clear to young people that those things are unacceptable in modern Scotland. We intend to do that. It is one of the reasons why the Parliament was created and I intend to be involved.

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National Theatre

To ask the First Minister when the appointment of a chairperson for the board of the national theatre will be announced. (S1F-2315)

The Scottish Arts Council will make an appointment from a shortlist of candidates, which has been drawn up on its behalf.

One would not have to be Mystic Mike to be disappointed with that answer.

The Executive's delay on the matter has landed it with two problems rather than one: under-resourcing in Scottish theatre leading to a drain of talent from Scotland, and endless delays in appointing a director for the national theatre. Would not the First Minister do better by funding Scottish theatre and the national theatre and by taking what the chairman of the Scottish Arts Council has suggested as a new baseline approach to Scottish arts funding so that we can move the arts forward rather than driving them backwards as his Administration has done?

I will say three things as briefly as I can.

First, Mr Russell should recognise that arts funding—I am not talking about local authority funding and all the other sources of funding—through the Scottish Arts Council and the three Scottish national institutions will go through the £100 million barrier next year for the first time.

Secondly, within that overall budget, the funding for drama will go up in 2003 to £7.5 million, which is an increase of £1.1 million or 17.34 per cent.

Thirdly, if Mr Russell knows anything about Scottish arts and culture, he will be aware that Scottish theatre's current problem is with the funding of those regional theatres that are so important because they are a baseline for any future national theatre in Scotland. That is why, in 2002 alone, there has been a 90 per cent increase in funding for the Byre Theatre, a 92 per cent increase for the Dundee Rep Theatre, a 24 per cent increase for the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, and a 60 per cent increase for the puppet and animation festival. All those are examples of increased funding for the Scottish regional theatres that will provide a basis for a national theatre in the years to come.

I welcome the First Minister's statement of commitment to the theatre in Scotland.

Can I make the First Minister aware that many in the theatre community are concerned that the delays to the national theatre are unfortunate? I welcome his commitment to regional theatre, particularly to theatres such as the Royal Lyceum Theatre Company, which have suffered over the years because of local authority funding crises, many of which were due to the abolition of regional councils.

Will the First Minister agree to ask his colleague Mike Watson to meet me to discuss the matter further to see how we can develop some of the excellent producing theatres in Scotland, upon which a future theatre could be built?

I cannot praise enough some of the excellent work that has taken place in Scotland's theatres in recent years and is taking place at the moment. It is important that theatres such as the Lyceum are supported at the right level.

That is precisely why we have had to delay the national theatre project. We have had to ensure that those theatres throughout Scotland are properly funded with the sorts of increases that will secure them as the basis for a proper national theatre in the years to come. I am sure that Mike Watson will be delighted to meet Sarah Boyack to discuss the subject. I reassure the chamber that the Executive's commitment to a national theatre remains firm. However, it will not be formed at the expense of regional theatre; it will build on Scotland's regional theatre.

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Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease

Now to dying people.

To ask the First Minister whether the Scottish Executive has any plans to review the methods of alerting any patients who may have been at risk of exposure to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. (S1F-2332)

The UK CJD incidents panel—the expert committee that was set up to give advice on the management of incidents—advises NHS Scotland on those matters. We have no plans to review those arrangements. However, I make it clear that I expect the panel and patients' clinicians to put the interests of patients and their families first at all times.

The First Minister will be aware that many people in Scotland received frightening letters last week. Those people are ill, because they were contaminated in the past as a result of the bad-blood scandal in the national health service, whereby skid-row blood was bought in from America, which infected babies. How will the First Minister answer Mr Andrew Gunn, who is standing outside this Parliament and protesting in the rain? He is asking for answers and a proper inquiry into the entire bad-blood scandal, including the most recent incident. The Minister for Health and Community Care claims that he was not told about the latest variant CJD risk and, of course, he was not the Minister for Health and Community Care two years ago, but he was at least the Deputy Minister for Health and Community Care. Will the First Minister end cover-ups in the NHS? Will he go for a public inquiry?

I have made it clear that I do not want to see any cover-ups in the NHS. I expect the panel of clinicians to which I referred, and the other bodies with similar responsibilities in the health service, to put the interests of patients and their families first at all times.

I wish to put on the record the fact that the Minister for Health and Community Care acted as soon as he knew that the information was available. He did that quickly, which was in the interests of the patients. He was right to do so, and I am sure that he has made it absolutely clear to his department that he needs to be able to do that more quickly in the future.

I will allow injury time for the point of order and take question 6.

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Dangerous Cargoes

To ask the First Minister what representations the Scottish Executive has made to Her Majesty's Government regarding the passage of ships with dangerous cargoes past Scotland's coastline. (S1F-2328)

We are in regular contact with the UK Government on a wide range of issues, including shipping. We share the same objective of ensuring that the seas around Scotland are safe and that the environment is protected.

I am sure that the First Minister will be aware that it is estimated that 20 per cent of the crude oil traffic in the United Kingdom goes through the biologically sensitive waters of the Minch. Will the First Minister make representations to the International Maritime Organisation and the Westminster Government to ensure that hazardous and dangerous shipping traffic takes the deep-water route west of the Hebrides?

Ministers will be happy to take up the points that John Farquhar Munro makes, but it is important to state that there are big issues of international maritime law. There are rights of free passage, and we cannot ignore that, but we need to ensure that our waters and our coast are as protected as they possibly can be, while respecting some of those international rights, which are important for Scots, as well as for people elsewhere in the world.

Does the First Minister agree, given the details that John Farquhar Munro has just outlined, that the use of pilots should be made mandatory for all ships passing through the Minch? Has he considered using the global positioning system to monitor and aid the passage of supertankers through those particularly dangerous waters?

The UK Government, as I understand it, is currently arguing for such changes in the international maritime regulations. We support it in those endeavours, and we are in regular contact with it.

That ends question time.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. In your response to Duncan McNeil's point of order, you may have inadvertently indicated that there was some bar against talking about questions before they were lodged, and that you would be prejudiced against questions that were talked about before they were lodged. Perhaps you could reflect upon that when you see the Official Report. If I am wrong about that, of course I shall apologise.

There is no need for an apology. I made a light-hearted remark. The fact is that there was no communication—as he will confirm—between Mr Russell and myself before I selected the questions, nor had I seen the newspaper report. It was unfortunate—and I do not blame the member; it may just be the report—that the newspaper said that he was going to raise the matter. Mr Russell could not know that, of course, because he did not know whether his question would be selected. That was the point of order, I think, that Mr McNeil was raising. It is a nice point, but not one that we should linger over.