Scottish Parliament, 15 June 2000

407 contributions from 89 members. The official report.

Introduction

Scottish Executive Announcements

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The first item of business this morning is a Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party debate on motion S1M-905, in the name of Bill Aitken, on announcements made by the Scottish Executive, and amendments to that motion.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

I take Parliament back to just over three years ago, when we entered the brave new world of new Labour politics. What has happened since then?

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

There are no Labour members in the chamber.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

Labour members cannot even get up in time to attend a debate in which they are being strongly criticised.

I repeat—what happened after the advent of the Labour Government? The spin began, and has continued to the extent that we no longer know what Labour members believe in. They say that they are inclusive, that they provide joined-up government, that they empower people and that they are building a new democracy. From time to time we are forced to ask ourselves, "But what do they think about telling the truth?" Time after time in the Scottish Parliament, at Westminster and by means of press releases, situations have arisen that are—to be frank—disgraceful.

Funding announcements follow fairly tightly laid-down criteria. An announcement is trailed, made and then reannounced. An announcement is then made about an increase, in which the increased figure is the amount that was announced originally. At the end of the day, government, in its broadest sense, is losing credibility.

A number of outstanding examples of such announcements are worthy of mention, from fairly unimportant examples to very serious ones. The announcement of a "Transport Boost for North-East" was first made in a Scottish Office circular in March 1999, when £4 million was announced for a bus priority scheme and park-and-ride facilities in Aberdeen. However, on 28 October 1999, we learn that the north-east is to receive an extra £4 million. There is no doubt that Brian Adam would be keen to have an extra £4 million invested there, but that was the same £4 million that was announced in March 1999, which the Executive described as a "boost".

On 11 March 1999, a press release announced a

"£14 million public transport boost for the West of Scotland"—

from the public transport fund, which included

"£6 million to develop three quality bus corridors"—

in Glasgow. The same bus corridors manifest themselves on 28 October, in the Scottish Executive's circular 1086, when Glasgow was awarded an "extra" £6 million.

Then, with Henry McLeish's announcement of a total expenditure of £11 million, came the Scottish Office's boost for tourism. Thereafter, Alasdair Morrison had to admit that £5.75 million of the alleged new money had been allocated previously. That sort of thing is simply not on.

When Parliament sat in Glasgow, Fiona Hyslop quite properly raised the matter of housing expenditure and the alleged £12.5 million of public investment. That was the same £12.5 million of public investment that had been announced by the Scottish Office in a circular that was dated 25 February 1999. What is happening? I repeat—government, in the broadest sense, is losing credibility.

It is essential that the Executive stops patronising the Scots people by continually reannouncing old spending commitments. Both Labour and Liberal ministers continually make such reannouncements in attempts at spin when things are going badly, but we find that there is no story behind the spin.

As I recall, it was Goebbels who said that the bigger the lie, the more readily it is believed. The Executive has adapted and, indeed, improved upon the Goebbels principle—the more often it tells the truth, the closer that truth gets to being untrue. For many Scots, the Executive announcements make it seem as if the Executive is living in a perpetual groundhog day, in which ministers continually make reannouncements in an attempt to spin a story where none exists.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Does the member agree that Alastair Campbell learned the principle of "The more you repeat a lie, the more it is believed," at Sir Bernard Ingham's feet? Bernard Ingham repeatedly rubbished Cabinet ministers, calling them semi-detached, in preparation for their sacking a few months after appointment. This is a bit rich coming from Bill Aitken—it was the Conservative party that invented spin.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

I am pleased that Mr Raffan has raised that issue, as I was about to come to it. Yesterday, Downing Street announced that Mr Campbell's activities will, in future, be restricted to dealing with the Government's record. That means that the spin-doctor incarnate is being imported to put out more lies and fiction about Government expenditure. That is what we are dealing with.

I refer Mr Raffan to my earlier remarks. What about the new politics and this new democracy? In recent months we have heard the reannouncement of accident and emergency funding and of Wendy Alexander's £12.5 million for Glasgow. We have heard the reannouncement of tourism funding. We must now ask whether ministers think that the average Scot has a head that zips up the back. The main problem is that their exaggerations, especially of health and housing spending, repeatedly raise hopes and expectations and those are not fulfilled. It is high time that that contemptible and thoroughly patronising tactic ceased.

Today we are asking the Executive to put in place a protocol for clarifying references to former spending commitments. The self-styled champions of freedom of information must come clean with the people of Scotland—they must state categorically when money is new spending and when it is just a reiteration of an earlier announcement. Time after time we see the tactic of the trail, the announcement, the reannouncement and the presentation of an increase—usually a marginal increase—as entirely new money. We have become used to all the new Labour buzz words—"additional funds", "additional resourcing", "funding boost", "extra", "award" and "injection of cash". The list is endless and the words are meaningless.

I say to the Minister for Parliament that what is at stake is not merely a political knockabout, but the integrity and credibility of government in its broadest sense. If people cannot accept at face value the announcements that are made by the Scotland Office and the Scottish Executive, the whole political process will be brought into disrepute. Honesty and integrity—the ability to be up front with the people of Scotland—are absolutely vital, especially at a time when there is an increasing amount of cynicism about politics and politicians generally.

This new Labour spin simply will not wash. In future we must be honest with the people of Scotland. In our motion we ask for appropriate protocols to be put in place. Under such protocols, the Scotland Office and the Executive would be committed to indicating whether money was new or whether it had been announced previously.

Des McNulty (Labour, Clydebank and Milngavie)

I hear Bill Aitken saying that it is important to be honest and up front. Will he apologise for the £150 million that was taken away from Glasgow as a result of local government reorganisation in 1996 and 1997? The member represents the people of Glasgow and an apology would be very acceptable.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

I need make no apology for what the Government of Scotland prior to 1997 did for the people of Glasgow. A Government that invested £2 billion in Glasgow's housing and created an economic climate that generated considerable employment in the Glasgow area is obviously a successful Government. Apologies are due from the Executive, which consistently and persistently undermines the integrity of government and which fails to recognise that the people of Scotland are not daft. They realise what the Government is at. This nonsense must stop.

I move,

That the Parliament agrees that considerable confusion has been caused by a number of recent Scottish Executive announcements, particularly funding announcements; believes that the way funding announcements are made by the Scottish Executive has done little to further open government; notes that the Executive has allowed the same resources to be announced as "new funding" on more than one occasion, thus damaging public scrutiny, and calls upon the Scottish Executive to institute a new protocol for all public and press announcements in order that these make clear whether funding announced is additional resources or whether it is part of a previous funding package and, if it is, when and through what statement the funding was previously announced.

Tom McCabe (Labour, Hamilton South)

If there is no truth in the suggestion that the Tory party in Scotland is lurching to the right, we will have to accept that Conservative members quote Mr Goebbels as a matter of course. That is a very strange way of behaving.

Reannouncements seem to be the Opposition theme of the moment. Perhaps they are a convenient cover for other embarrassments. I do not know which way to look when I talk about other embarrassments—

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Behind you. [Laughter.]

Tom McCabe (Labour, Hamilton South)

It is an odd subject on which to use up parliamentary time. We in the Executive would have preferred to discuss the subjects that really matter to the people of Scotland—housing, health and jobs—rather than the political froth that we are debating this morning. Froth it might be, but it provides a welcome opportunity for the Executive to set the record straight. It is a wonderful chance—regardless of whether the Tories or others like it—to reiterate what the partnership Government is doing and to contrast our vigour and investment with the barren years of Conservative Governments.

The wording of their motion and Bill Aitken's opening speech suggest that the Conservatives have no idea what they are talking about. It is simply not enough to make unsubstantiated allegations and there is little indication that the Opposition has given serious thought to important issues. Those issues include the democratic need to keep people fully informed about what elected representatives are doing in their name and with their money and the fact that announcements have to address a wide range of different audiences that have different interests. There is also a need to avoid making announcements outside Parliament without keeping Parliament fully informed of them and a need not only to make initial announcements about proposals, but to report progress, which must be put in its proper context.

Communication is not just about news releases that are read by a few. It has been said that to govern is to inform. It is a duty of Government—if we are to have a genuinely participative democracy in Scotland—to use a wide range of communication methods to allow people to keep themselves informed about the issues that interest and concern them.

Fiona Hyslop (Scottish National Party, Lothians)

Does the minister agree that in order to have openness in the Parliament we must, when discussing budgets, distinguish between announcements of initial allocations and announcements of distribution of those initial allocations? Does he agree that, for the good of this Parliament and for the good of the Government and so that people understand what the Government is doing, he should ensure that his colleagues make it clear what are initial allocations and what are subsequent distributions?

Tom McCabe (Labour, Hamilton South)

That is an important point, and I will return to it later in my speech.

The Executive has been accused of announcing more than once money for health, for housing, for homelessness and for combating the menace of drugs. If, during the long years of Tory government, we could have persuaded the Tories to invest properly in those areas even once, perhaps Scotland would be in a better state today.

We make no apologies for explaining how we spend taxpayers' money. Yes, we announced more money for health, education and policing. Yes, we then announced how that money would be spent on more heart operations, classroom assistants and police on the beat. To the Tories, those might be reannouncements, but to hundreds of thousands of Scots they represent simply relief—relief from the barren years of Tory government during which such announcements were all too scarce. They represent relief that more operations are being carried out, relief that kids are being taught in smaller classes and relief that our streets are being made safer.

When we take another step to improve people's lives, we will mention it time and again. It is no wonder that the Tories do not like hearing our announcements. With every announcement that we make, we give greater opportunities to Scottish families—opportunities that they were denied for so long.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

The minister mentioned smaller classes. I have examined class sizes in South Ayrshire and there is no difference there, other than a slight increase in class sizes since 1997. Can the minister justify his comments?

Tom McCabe (Labour, Hamilton South)

I can justify my comments simply. We have committed ourselves to reducing class sizes in the first three years of primary education. We have committed ourselves to an overall reduction in class sizes throughout Scotland. There is much empirical evidence to suggest that class sizes are decreasing. Mr Gallie has examined the situation in South Ayrshire, but I suggest that he re-examine it. Not only educationists, but parents will inform him that the situation in their children's classrooms has improved considerably.

It has been claimed that we repeat announcements for political advantage. Of course all political parties want to gain credit for their actions—that should be blindingly obvious even to those who have no experience in government and to those who have no chance of gaining government experience.

However, we recognise that it is our duty to explain the Government's policies, decisions and actions impartially. That is the guiding principle behind the Executive's information service. The processes and business of government involve the announcement of many facts and financial figures. It is the Executive's duty to try to present those in a clear and comprehensible way. Too often, the Opposition sees its duty as being to distort simple facts.

We have been criticised in a number of areas. In health, the Executive was accused by the Conservatives of recycling announcements in relation to the £1.8 billion of new money for the health service that resulted from the comprehensive spending review. That was new money, on top of the baselines that we inherited from the previous Conservative Government. If only that level of investment could have been achieved under its cack-handed stewardship of the national health service.

The Conservatives were inaccurate when they made that criticism—which was also unjustified—and when they issued their press release, they even got the year wrong. Since the CSR, there have been other increases in the health budget, most recently in the addition of extra resources that followed the Chancellor of the Exchequer's March budget. The Executive has kept Parliament and the public fully informed of those changes to the overall budget and—through a wide range of further announcements—has reported on allocations to priority areas and on how money will be distributed geographically. That is not reannouncing money.

We make no apology for any of that. People have a right to know what their money is being spent on and they want to know that in a number of ways. They want to know, for example, how much is being spent on health in a particular area and how much is being spent on accident and emergency services in their area. That is the kind of information that people demand. They have a right to receive it and we provide it as part of our democratic responsibility.

The Executive was criticised for reannouncing money that resulted from the United Kingdom budget consequentials. The Executive was accused of reannouncing the resources that came to Scotland as a result of the budget. The Minister for Finance announced those figures in a statement on 30 March, which made it clear that the allocation of those resources would be subject to further consideration. On 16 May, he answered a parliamentary question and explained:

"Further to my announcement in my statement to Parliament on 30 March, I can confirm that Cabinet have resolved the following allocations of resources, by programme."—[Official Report, Written Answers, 16 May 2000; Vol 6, p 148.]

The purpose of that was to ensure that Parliament was kept fully informed of the Executive's decisions about those resources. Far from concealing a previous announcement, we made specific reference to it. There was no confusion about figures—the Executive was merely ensuring that Parliament was treated properly. How loud would the outcry have been if we had done anything else? The Tories are often the first to shout if the Parliament is not given its proper place.

Andrew Wilson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

On the same day as Jack McConnell's answer to the parliamentary question, David Whitton, the chief adviser and spin-doctor to Donald Dewar, gave a press briefing in which no reference was made to that parliamentary answer. The press was not informed. That is the point that we are trying to make—the announcement was not fed to the press, but was fed quietly to Parliament.

Tom McCabe (Labour, Hamilton South)

I did not know that the member was so dependent on what he often refers to as Executive spin-doctors for his information. I thought that an important part of the job of the Opposition was to look at the answers to parliamentary questions and take that information in.

We were criticised about rough sleepers. On 1 June, the Minister for Communities was criticised when she announced the allocation of £13 million funding through the rough sleepers initiative. I stress that the announcement was about allocation, not availability, which was previously known. On that day, she also announced—

Fiona Hyslop (Scottish National Party, Lothians)

Will the minister give way?

Tom McCabe (Labour, Hamilton South)

No, I have taken a few interventions.

The minister also announced £12 million of new money for that initiative, which comprised £4 million for a health initiative, £6 million to deal with the problems of bed-and-breakfast accommodation and £2 million to deal with the problems of replacing Glasgow hostels. There are clear distinctions between availability, allocation and new money.

The real problem for the Tories is not reannouncements, but the fact that the governing partnership in Scotland is investing substantial sums to improve the lives of the people of Scotland. On coming to office in 1997, the new Government invested an additional £1 million to tackle the problem of rough sleeping. That was increased by £14 million in the comprehensive spending review, and the partnership Executive increased it by a further £6 million last year. A number of announcements have been made since October 1997 regarding rough sleepers, all of which show a determination to remove the tragedy of rough sleeping from our streets.

Perhaps that is what gives the Conservatives their biggest problem. Perhaps their real gripe is about the fact that those announcements contrast the work of the partnership Executive only too vividly with the dark days of the me-first attitude that was all too prevalent during the Tory years.

Let us contrast the Tories' record with that of the Government at Westminster and this partnership Executive. Since the previous UK budget, there have been announcements totalling £2.2 billion of new money for health, £87 million of new money for education, £16 million of new money for transport and £9 million of new money for additional policemen. I could cite more examples, but I am conscious that I might risk being accused of making more reannouncements. Restatement of that money is what enrages the Conservatives, because it illustrates the contrast between their performance and the performance of the Executive.

It would be too easy simply to portray this morning's business as a flavour-of-the-month debate. It is, in fact, a fear debate. The Tories fear our innovation, our vigour and our determination to tackle Scotland's problems. They are on the brink of the electoral precipice and they are terrified that the Executive's policies will push them over the edge.

We will not be deflected from our professional approach. We are committed to record levels of investment and public spending, and to creating a new Scotland where there is opportunity for all. If the best that the Tories can do is to challenge us for explaining that to the people of Scotland, we are winning the argument and they are losing it.

I move amendment S1M-905.1, to leave out from "agrees" to end and insert:

"notes that the provision of information by the Scottish Executive about its policies, spending plans and public services is an essential part of open, participative Government; agrees that such provision of information needs to be carried out in a modern, professional, pro-active and impartial manner so as to engage all interested citizens, and notes that the Scottish Executive will continue to pursue these aims."

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I agree with Bill Aitken about the issue of misleading and deliberately repeating announcements, but the real problem for his party is that its announcements are all too clear. That can be seen from the front page of The Herald this morning, which says that one of the Tories' brightest candidates, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, has joined the SNP because of the right-wing, bovver-boy approach of the Tory party—which is confirmed in her letter of resignation.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

Will Mr Russell give way?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

No, I will not. One hears the term right-wing bovver boy from the Tory back benches quite often. It is usually used to describe Brian Monteith, but Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh was describing William Hague's attitude. I welcome Tasmina into the SNP and I hope that she will be sitting in the chamber with us before too long, and sitting in government.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

Will Mr Russell give way?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

No. Let me get into my speech.

Frank McAveety (Labour, Glasgow Shettleston)

Will Mr Russell give way?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I have much to say about Mr McAveety, but I want to get on with my speech.

My amendment to Mr Aitken's motion goes to the heart of the Executive's problem. The Scottish Parliament is founded on a number of key principles, which are laid out in the report of the consultative steering group and with which Mr McAveety and his colleagues are familiar. The introduction to that report was written by none other than Henry McLeish, when he was a minister of state and Scottish Office Minister for Home Affairs and Devolution. In those days, he was higher in the new Labour pecking order than he is today.

The principles in that report are worth repeating. Labour members might not like the principles, but I shall repeat them. The Scottish Parliament was meant to

"embody and reflect the"—

Frank McAveety (Labour, Glasgow Shettleston)

Will Mr Russell give way?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Let me get through the principles—I will then take Mr McAveety's intervention. I am sure that he has been up all night thinking of an intervention, and he will get his chance.

The Scottish Parliament was meant to

"embody and reflect the sharing of power between the people of Scotland, the legislators and the Scottish Executive".

The key principles went on to say that

"the Scottish Executive should be accountable to the Scottish Parliament and the Parliament and Executive should be accountable to the people of Scotland".

The report said that the Scottish Parliament must be accessible, open and responsive. In its operations, the Scottish Parliament

"should recognise the need to promote equal opportunities for all."

The CSG report went on to say that those principles were—and indeed are—the benchmark of the success of Scottish democracy. They are, as the CSG said,

"a symbol of what the Scottish people may reasonably expect from their elected representatives."

Measurement of the Executive and its conduct over the past year—even if we measure only how it announces its policies and its funding commitments—shows that it is obvious that the Executive is falling short of the CSG principles. The CSG said something else that the Executive finds difficult—it found in its investigations that there was a cynical disillusionment with politics. It said that Parliament should set "the highest standards" so that the Scottish people "will trust and respect" Scottish democracy and the Scottish Executive. How can the people of Scotland "trust and respect" government by illusion?

Announcements are repeated as if they are new and resources are doubled, trebled and quadrupled. Ministers not only connive in such actions—they perform them.

In the course of researching for the debate, the SNP has—in a paper that we will publish—identified endless examples of double and treble counting. There is a paper trail of illusion that involves Sam Galbraith, Susan Deacon, Wendy Alexander, Jackie Baillie, Frank McAveety, Angus MacKay, Jack McConnell, Ross Finnie, Donald Dewar, Sarah Boyack and others. [Interruption.] I think that Mr Peacock wants to be included in the list. Let him be included in the list. All those ministers and more are involved in the exercise.

It appears that the only minister who is not involved is the one who has drawn the short straw in answering today's debate. [Interruption.] I am sorry—Mr Smith wants to be counted in. Mr Smith and Mr McCabe are not guilty. I know their jobs well—I shadow them. The problem is that neither Mr McCabe nor Mr Smith has the opportunity to be involved in the exercise, so they are not guilty only because they cannot find a way of doing what the other ministers do.

I will use an example. It is interesting that Mr McCabe used the same example in his speech, but I suspect that there is a touch of guilt involved—Mr McCabe knows where the bodies are buried. The example is this year's budget at Westminster. On 18 May, David Whitton gave a briefing to the press. He had round his neck—as Tricia Marwick noted—a red cord that was stamped "Labour", in case anybody found him and had to return him home. He told the Scottish press that the Cabinet had that day

"given final approval after an exhaustive and comprehensive new method of agreeing department shares of available money".

That announcement was old even when David Whitton made it. Allegedly, there had been a Sisyphean struggle within the Cabinet. Ministers had all been contending with each other. They had argued [Interruption.]—I am glad that Mr McNeil liked the word, I will write it down for him later. There had been a Sisyphean struggle within the Cabinet. At the end of that process, ministers divided the money up.

Mr Whitton then gave a list of figures. Health was to receive £173.3 million—well done, Susan Deacon. Education was to get £86.6 million—Sam Galbraith is still in there. Transport and the environment was to get £15.9 million—I think Sarah Boyack is in trouble. Justice was to get £8.9 million—Jim Wallace clearly does not have any clout on that matter.

That was the division of the money that was announced proudly on 18 May. The Executive, through its spokesman, presented that as a triumph for the new system of government, a triumph for individual ministers and a triumph for new Labour. What was the truth?

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

Does Mike Russell welcome the extra money?

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Mr Rumbles does not know the truth. He has had the wool pulled over his eyes, like all the Liberals.

The truth is that the figures are identical—not roughly equivalent to, but identical—to those that were announced by John Reid two months earlier on budget day. Surprise, surprise—they are also identical to the figures in the annual expenditure report of the Scottish Executive that was published on 19 April.

There is another truth to be told. Those sums were trumpeted as massive increases as the McConnell gambit—exaggerate everything—came into play. The McConnell gambit presented those figures as massive, yet they did not even match the parsimony of the final Forsyth years.

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

Does Mike Russell welcome the massive increase in health spending and the new money for education? He should compare that with what happened under the Conservatives, who could not make such announcements during their years in power because they would not invest.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I remember when Jim Wallace was acting as Mike Rumbles's party leader and not acting as First Minister. At that time he described those increases as a joke and talked about the need for more public expenditure. Mike Rumbles has swallowed the spin.

I will conclude by making it clear that the figures that were announced were illusions. They were announced once, twice and three times. Susan Deacon even announced the figures on health spending a fourth time in the chamber. She called that an emergency statement, but Duncan Hamilton described it memorably as

"more of an accident than an emergency."—[Official Report, 22 March 2000; Vol 5, c 868.]

In reality, on every occasion on which the Government speaks, it breaks the CSG recommendations. Today we tell the Executive that it is falling very far short of the principles that it and the Parliament accepted. It must return to those principles and it must ensure that it speaks the truth to the people whom it represents. At the moment, it is not doing those things.

I move amendment S1M-905.2, to leave out from "a new protocol" to end and insert:

"and implement with immediate effect a policy for all Parliamentary, press and public announcements which is based upon the founding principles of this Parliament as defined by the Consultative Steering Group, that is to be accountable, accessible and open, and in particular to make absolutely clear in all such announcements whether policy innovations are new or repeated, whether funding announcements are allocations or distributions and from what budget in what year these sums will come."

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

After that piece of very light entertainment, I will follow Mr McCabe in striking a serious note in the debate, as is my wont. I do not want to anticipate the Finance Committee's report on stage 1 of the budget, which will be debated in the chamber in two weeks' time, but I will briefly reiterate a few of the points that I have made over the past few months. I am grateful to the Minister for Finance for the constructive session that we had with him in the Finance Committee on Tuesday.

As I have long said, we need a radical restructuring of "Investing in You". I am sometimes teased because I say that it should be along the lines of the Oregon budget book. We need more substantial detail and we need figures in real as well as cash terms. Moreover, we must clearly delineate underspends, so that we have a baseline and know exactly what the real increases are.

On drugs—an area in which I take particular interest—we need to know the total amount that is being spent on enforcement, treatment and prevention. It is difficult to find out such information, because drugs is a cross-cutting issue. If we do not have such robust information, how can the Parliament and the committees play their full part in suggesting where spending should be reallocated?

On the Conservative party, which, of course, is a favourite theme of mine, I have to concede that nobody could accuse the Scottish Tory party of not being open and transparent. Indeed, thanks to Mr Murray Tosh's lengthy epistle to The Scotsman, we all now know who hates whom in the Conservatives' current bitter civil war.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

We hate Keith Raffan.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The one theme is that they all hate Mr Monteith, who usually sits at the back in a separate row. I will give the Conservatives a bit of friendly helpful advice: ditching Mr McLetchie and replacing him with Mr Tosh would be like going directly from the frying pan into the crematorium. I can safely say that everyone in the chamber—I will even speak for the SNP on this, if I may be so presumptuous—is eagerly looking forward to the Tory conference in Dundee, which is certainly more than the Tories are.

The Tory motion starts off somewhat unfortunately. It says that

"the Parliament agrees that considerable confusion has been caused by a number of recent Scottish Executive announcements".

Of course, one could delete "Scottish Executive" and replace it with "Tory party", because nobody can be more confused than the Tories are over their economic policy, on funding in particular. The Tories could get away with such a motion only if their economic policy were not in its current state of chaos and confusion.

Let us take the so-called tax guarantee, which is to reduce the share of national income absorbed by taxes during the lifetime of a Parliament. Mr Hague announced that that would be a guarantee. Then the shadow chancellor said that it was not a guarantee but an aspiration. Two days later, Mr Hague corrected Mr Portillo by saying that, no, it was a guarantee and he would have a word with Michael.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

My understanding is that the economy of Scotland has been devolved to some degree. Is not Mr Raffan talking about national economic policies, which are irrelevant to the argument?

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

That is not a point of order.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I can imagine that even Mr Gallie occasionally gets embarrassed by the UK Tory party and their antics.

While Mr Portillo and Mr Hague were disagreeing about the fundamentals of their economic policy, Tory spokesmen continued to make spending announcements almost every day, which made a nonsense of the whole thing anyway. The Tories are in no position to talk about confusion in the Executive's funding announcements when their own economic policy is in such a state of chaos.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

Will the member give way?

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

No, I do not want to embarrass the Tories any further. I am about to move on to the SNP.

I am not going to spend too much time on the SNP, because I am a charitable figure and the SNP has had a tough week. The SNP amendment calls for accountability, accessibility and openness. Let us remember those words—the very characteristics that we all associate with the SNP's handling of its party finances.

I congratulate the SNP on its new recruit, announced in The Herald today to try to distract us from the Blackford saga. I hope that she brings the party some badly needed financial experience. As a qualified solicitor, she should certainly help in the forthcoming lawsuit.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Will the member give way?

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

No.

Let us get real. How can the SNP attack the Scottish Executive over the way in which it runs its finances when the SNP cannot run its own? According to Mr Blackford, a distinguished banker, the SNP's overdraft is more than £400,000. The SNP cannot live within its means. If that is what it does to its own finances, what on earth would it do to Scotland's?

Mr Salmond is now on his third treasurer in 10 years. He has had almost as many treasurers as Elizabeth Taylor has had husbands. Whenever one of the SNP's treasurers calls for openness and accountability, Mr Salmond gets rid of them. The final rich irony is that Mr MacAskill has now been put in charge of the SNP's books. That is like putting an alcoholic in charge of the brewery. He is just the man to double the overdraft.

Let us look at the SNP's spending commitments since 1 September last year. I will have to refer to my notes to get the latest figure, as it goes up every day. Of the £2.4 billion committed since 1 September, Mr MacAskill is responsible for £1.076 billion—more than 40 per cent—for everything from building every road to nationalising Railtrack. He never consults poor Mr Wilson, the jelly chancellor, who has absolutely no input whatever into the spending commitments that his people make.

All that the Tories and SNP do is swap ideas about how to conduct their respective bitter civil wars and, occasionally, members. The motion should be about when we are going to get a decent Opposition in this place—neither of the two parties provide it and I am fed up with trying to provide it on my own.

Andrew Wilson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

It is with a due sense of balance and statesmanship that I rise to take part in what is an important debate. First, let me say to Mr McNeil that Sisyphean struggles refer to the myth of Sisyphus.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

I told Andrew that.

Andrew Wilson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

According to Mike Russell, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to push a boulder uphill all his life. I am sure that that is something that Mike can relate to in his personal life.

As has been pointed out, Mr McCabe, as the only not-guilty member of the Executive, has been asked to take part in this debate on the Executive's approach. I am surprised about that, because I thought that it was Mr McConnell's job to control the Executive's approach to public information. Mr McCabe's key comment today was that every political party wants to gain advantage from their actions. No one doubts or disputes that. However, the core of the argument is that the Government should not use the levers of state power for party political advantage.

Mike Russell outlined the approach to the budget and I do not need to repeat that in detail. The key point is that the Executive should not use people paid by the public fund to advance party political cases. John Reid's assistant appears consistently as a contact on Labour party press releases, despite the fact that he is paid out of the public purse. Likewise, Dave Whitton may be many things—he may be modern, professional, have his own ideas and be proactive, to use the words in Mr McCabe's amendment—but he is certainly not impartial. We need look no further than Liz Drummond, the former head of the information service. When Labour first came to power in 1997, she resigned almost immediately, along with most of the Government information service directors across the country. She said that, whereas the Government information service had abided by the old cliché that facts are cited but comment is free, she did not think that the Labour Administration would.

That is the key point. Professionals who dedicated their lives to and made a vocation of progressing public information on behalf of successive Governments do not regard Labour as impartial. They regard Labour as entirely partial—it abuses public resources for its own political ends.

Richard Simpson (Labour, Ochil)

I wonder whether Mr Wilson will remind us whether it was 24 or 26 times that the Conservatives changed the basis of the unemployment statistics? There was no protest about that from the information department or the statistics department, which at that time was regarded simply as a wing of government.

Andrew Wilson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

It was actually 31 times. The current Government—first Mr Dewar and now Mr Wallace—has consistently used those same statistics in order to argue that unemployment is the lowest that it has ever been. The Labour party has picked up the baton from the Tories. The claimant count has been cited on successive occasions at question time. I agree that that is something that should be addressed.

The point of today's discussion is whether the information service should get away with the act of continually recycling announcements. That is something that happens across all policy matters—health, education, drugs, law and order and transport. Wendy Alexander is involved in a Sisyphean struggle within the Cabinet to replace part of Sarah Boyack's brief as the minister responsible for recycling. That was exposed by Fiona Hyslop in Glasgow, to the Government's embarrassment. If people are to have faith in government, we must know exactly what is being done in our name. That is why I support Mike Russell's amendment and urge everyone else to do the same.

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Let us wind this up fairly snappily.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

I will be gentle—as always. I am pleased to take part in the debate. I am grateful to my colleague Mr Raffan for, as ever, introducing some humour, with a fair sprinkling of facts, into the proceedings.

I find the Conservative motion particularly annoying, if not distressing. I believed that the Tories would take this opportunity to debate some of the big issues that affect the people of Scotland. They might have wanted to discuss poverty—they caused most of it. They might have wanted to discuss homelessness—they caused most of that. They might have decided to discuss falling educational standards—again, they mostly caused that. However, that was not to be. They did not choose to discuss any of the major issues that face the people of Scotland; instead, they chose to focus on pedantic semantics about announcements made by Government ministers.

I wondered what the thrust and substance of the Tory debate would be—I am still wondering. However, as Tom McCabe said, policies do not come out of the air fully formed, as the Tories well know. In a democratic society, policies develop as different agencies are consulted and as circumstances change. In Scotland in particular, we hoped that our new Parliament would enable us to have a more open and pluralistic decision-making process.

Surely the Conservatives do not want us to stop informing the public about changing and developing policies. Does Bill Aitken really believe that we should stop communicating with those who gave us power, or exclude the groups and organisations that have something positive to contribute to our legislation?

It is entirely sensible to have several announcements as Government policy develops. Tom McCabe took us through what happened with the rough sleepers initiative. First, the Executive's continuing support for the project was announced in the partnership agreement; afterwards, we announced that we had identified extra resources and were calling in bids; and finally we announced which of those bids had been successful and how much money would be allocated. In time, ministers will visit those services, which have been paid for with public money. All those announcements referred to the same resources, yet at each stage the policy had been developed. It would be remiss, indeed negligent, for the Executive not to keep the public and the press informed about that.

The truth is that the Government inherited the Tories' declining spending plans but has turned them round into increased expenditure. This year's budget has delivered an extra £288 million for public services, in the context of a comprehensive spending review that has already delivered £1.8 billion for health and £1.3 billion for education. I will certainly not apologise for that and I do not think that any minister in the chamber should apologise for it. However, the Conservatives do not want to talk about that.

The main point of today's debate should be what the Tories would have reannounced if they had been in power. Would they have reannounced the poll tax, and the poverty and misery that it caused? Would they have reannounced the Black Wednesday fiasco, which caused businesses to plunge into decay? Would they have reannounced the scandal of 4 million people being unemployed and languishing in hopelessness and helplessness? That is the truth of what the Tories did to Scotland.

Since it came to power, the Executive, with the Scottish Parliament, has been turning round the misery that the Tories caused to the people of Scotland. The people of Scotland will not be fooled by the Tories' crocodile tears or by their pathetic words. They know the Tories' record, they know what the Tories are about and they know that we are delivering on the people's priorities.

Fiona Hyslop (Scottish National Party, Lothians)

I have a sense of déjà vu. Somehow I feel that I have been here before—but, then, reannouncements are the point of the debate.

Let me take members back to Glasgow, to illustrate the point. On the first day that we met in Glasgow, we realised that the £12.5 million of new money was not quite new money. On our last day in Glasgow, we had the announcement of the £12 million "boost"—I remind Mr McCabe that that is a quote from the press release. It is one thing to reannounce the same money for the same policy initiative, but when the Executive starts announcing the same money for different initiatives, it is straying into different territory. The purpose of the SNP amendment is to stop that practice.

When I asked the minister where that £12 million had come from, she said:

"The additional funding for the rough sleepers initiative that we are announcing today will be met from underspends that are carried forward from the previous financial year. The Minister for Finance will issue a more detailed statement. Those funds are drawn from prudent financial management across the whole of the Executive's budget".—[Official Report, 1 June 2000; Vol 6, c 1301.]

We do not know any more than that, because we have not had that more detailed statement, but we must have it. I want to know what that money is not being spent on. Is it teachers, nurses or policemen? Where has the money come from? I welcome the fact that the money will tackle homelessness, but I want to know where it comes from.

It is the duty of the Parliament to scrutinise Government. The money belongs not to the Executive, but to the people. This is not about largesse and making announcements about other people's money; we must ensure that we know where the money is coming from and where it is going.

The Minister for Communities and her team are the serial offenders.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

She is away again; she is not in the chamber.

Fiona Hyslop (Scottish National Party, Lothians)

Yes, she is away.

For the Scottish community investment fund, £10 million was announced on 3 November. On 13 March, £10 million was announced, again for that same fund—but, of course, that was a loan.

On the domestic abuse fund—welcome as that is—£6 million was announced on 27 October, with only £3 million coming from the Executive and, on 28 March, £5 million was announced, with only £1.2 million coming from the Executive.

What about the warm deal? Well, here we go: £12 million—the Executive must have a thing about that figure; the announcements always seem to be about £12 million—was first announced on 20 October 1999 by Frank McAveety. That announcement was not the first, not the second, but the third press release on that amount in six months.

What about the rough sleepers initiative? In December 1998, Calum MacDonald announced £14 million. In September 1999, Wendy Alexander announced £6 million. In November, she added the two sums together to make £20 million and the Scottish Executive press release—"Alexander announces next round in fight against rough sleeping"—said:

"Wendy Alexander today outlined proposals for spending a further £20 million".

It is wrong to claim that such funding is "additional" and "further" to existing funding.

The problem concerns policy announcements as well as funding. The licensing of houses of multiple occupancy was first announced on 4 June 1998 by Calum MacDonald, again on 30 September 1999 by Wendy Alexander and yet again, with the identical press release, on 11 October 1999. It is interesting to find that, since the Tories lodged their motion for this debate, that press release has disappeared from the Executive website. The Executive must have realised the duplication.

Keith Raffan mentioned drugs. Mr MacKay announced £1 million for drug action teams in November and December 1999, and in January and February of this year. Such announcements lull people into a false sense of security by making them think that additional moneys are being invested in one of the Parliament's most serious policy issues.

The bottom line is trust in politicians. As Bill Aitken pointed out, the Executive is not just letting down the Labour party, the Government and the Parliament, but affecting people's faith in politicians. It must get its act together.

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I am not sure that there is much that I need add after Keith Raffan's excellent speech. This is a relatively pointless debate on a concern that is more apparent than real.

We will not take any lessons from the Conservatives about the Executive's professional and comprehensive system for keeping the public and Parliament informed. The Executive believes in open government and is delivering on that.

Repetition is often necessary and appropriate for a variety of reasons. It provides context; shows changes from previously announced positions; keeps different audiences informed; and serves as a reminder. For example, it might be worth reminding people today that the Scottish Executive has abolished tuition fees. We have to keep reannouncing that because the SNP and the Conservatives do not believe it; we will continue to reannounce it because it is true.

We agree with the Opposition that announcements should clarify instead of confuse, but there is no evidence that the Executive's practice of keeping a wide range of audiences fully informed at all stages of policy development has caused confusion. The public really want to know not just how much money is being spent but what is being done with it. That is why we have committed ourselves to such a major exercise of public and parliamentary consultation about our spending plans. For the first time, people throughout Scotland and the Parliament have been given the opportunity to make their views known on our spending strategy. That has never happened before under any Government; it certainly never happened under Conservative Administrations, when Scotland simply received the block allocation without any advance information or consultation on how that money would be spent.

The Executive pays considerable attention to how it announces policy precisely to ensure that Scottish citizens are kept fully informed and given the opportunity to engage fully in the process of government. Mike Russell accuses us of not following the consultative steering group's principles of openness, accountability and accessibility. Then he waves a sheaf of papers that he claims to be a detailed report that will be published—presumably after the debate—without giving the Parliament a chance to challenge him on the veracity of the contents of those papers. That is not being open, accessible and accountable.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

The papers contain the Executive's announcements.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Let the SNP publish its own finances, too.

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Order.

David Mundell (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Does the Deputy Minister for Parliament agree that one of the best ways of improving the openness of the Scottish system of government would be to allow MSPs much more direct access to Scottish Executive civil servants? Will he undertake to review the current code of access?

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I have already appeared before the Procedures Committee on that very issue. MSPs have significant access to civil servants through public information lines, the Executive website—which contains all the statements that Mike Russell claims are reannouncements and therefore mislead the public—and the "Investing in You" document. A vast array of sources of information is available to MSPs and the general public about what the Executive is doing. Nothing is being hidden; we are committed to openness and accountability.

We had sparse examples from Bill Aitken and Mike Russell of what we are supposed to be doing. Mike claimed that we were breaching the principles of the CSG, but the example that he gave related to the budget consequentials, the process of dealing with which is an example of the Executive's completely fulfilling the CSG principles. We announced what the consequentials would be and what the decision-making process for allocation would be. Once the Executive had considered the amount of money available, it made the announcement in the form of an answer to a parliamentary question, which was available to every member of this Parliament. We are now going beyond that to announce the details of how the money will be spent in specific areas. No doubt the money that has been announced for the police will be referred to in the next debate this morning. That process demonstrates openness and accountability.

Michael Russell (Scottish National Party, South of Scotland)

Has the minister not grasped that we are talking not about the fact that the Executive does not talk enough but about the fact that it constantly repeats itself? The minister has had an example of that from me, from Fiona Hyslop and from other members. Will he answer those points or simply deny their existence?

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

No member of any party has given me an example of a substantial problem in relation to reannouncements. We have been given a lot of smoke and puff about very little. We need to acknowledge that the Executive is committed to openness and that the information is available.

The charge of reannouncement has been levelled by the Opposition parties this morning, but it does not hold up. They have homed in on the fact that figures might appear in more than one announcement, but they have not thought about why that happens. A more detailed look at the evidence shows that a process aimed at giving full information on policy and spending decisions means that people must be kept informed of developments and changes.

The Executive is committed to open government. Our actions speak as loudly as our words. Provision of information in a modern, professional way is an integral part of that commitment. We are aware of the risk that people might suffer from information overload, which might lead to confusion—the Opposition parties certainly seem to be confused—but we are happy to listen to constructive criticism and positive ways in which we can improve the presentation of information to the public.

I am happy to support the amendment in the name of Tom McCabe.

Ben Wallace (Conservative, North East Scotland)

The Executive has failed to grasp the point of this debate. We recognise that much more important issues face Scotland than this subject; that is why we allocated only an hour of our Opposition morning to it—we did not think that it would take too long to discredit the Executive.

The debate is about how the mechanics of government affect the people who have to live with the effects of the policies. Yesterday, I received a letter from a senior nurse in Edinburgh. She explained that she had heard many announcements from the Government, but had never seen any improvements. Her final comment was interesting. She said:

"Labour only cares about the headlines".

Therein lies the problem.

Like the boy who cried wolf, a Government can announce new money only a certain amount of times before the electorate stop believing it. Labour spin has remained just that. Things have not got better and the people in this country know that all too well. Phil Gallie made a concrete point. He said that the class sizes in South Ayrshire had not got smaller. The Executive replied that he was wrong and that the problem was only that its message was not getting through. That is a classic example of the fact that the Executive prefers the spin to the truth.

Keith Raffan has become rather like Roger Irrelevant from Viz. The subject of this debate is whether the Executive is correctly handling its announcements. However, all that he gave us was Westminster-centred points about William Hague's tax policies and internal party politics. He conveniently failed to mention the fact that a Liberal Democrat, Donald Gorrie, signed the SNP motion when it was lodged.

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

Will Ben Wallace take an intervention?

Ben Wallace (Conservative, North East Scotland)

No, I am closing.

Andrew Wilson's point about Liz Drummond was pertinent. Right across the United Kingdom, Government information officers started to resign when new Labour came to power, as the Government was intent on manipulating information rather than passing it on.

I congratulate Iain Smith on—was it his maiden speech? I am not sure. The subject of tuition fees has become a bit like a B&Q advertisement—although Labour members do not like B&Q, because it is not up to their standard any more—which says, "Buy now, pay later." The nurses and the doctors in accident and emergency wards are probably quite confused over all the redevelopments that have been going on. After all the cash boosts, which have been reannounced five times since October 1998, many of them still say that nothing has improved.

In December 1998, Sam Galbraith, as Scottish Office health minister, announced money for modernising health centres. The Government obviously thought that we might have forgotten about that over Christmas, as the money was reannounced in February 1999. That became an annual event; the money has since been announced again. Under this Government, the additional money for health spending has had more relaunches than the space shuttle and the difference between the spin and the reannouncements adds up to nearly £190 million.

When Sam Galbraith decided to go off to become the Minister for Children and Education, he could not resist taking the habit with him. He announced £2 million for special educational needs in April 1999, which was reannounced in February. It is rife across the Executive.

Karen Gillon (Labour, Clydesdale)

His wife? [Laughter.]

Ben Wallace (Conservative, North East Scotland)

Rife. I can give Karen Gillon elocution lessons later, if she wants.

Some might say that it is right to reannounce money. However, to coax press releases to give the impression that new money is being spent is at best misleading and at worst downright dishonest. The Government inserts the words "extra", "boost for" and "cash for" to give the impression that the money is new. Reannouncements have become the trait of an Executive that believes primarily in presentation. Members will recall that the NHS Direct 24-hour service line was announced more than 15 months ago. The truth is that that service does not exist and has never existed in Scotland, although it has been up and running in England and Wales for more than eight months. The Royal College of Nursing and the Scottish health councils have not even been consulted yet. That is the truth.

As the Executive promises so much, yet delivers so little, building its houses on sand, it should not be surprised when its emperor's new clothes start to wear away. I end with words that were written to a member of the Labour party.

"Labour is not believed to be real. We lack convictions, it is all spin and presentation. We just say things to please people, not because we believe them."

Those are not my words or those of the SNP. They are the words of Philip Gould, one of the arch Labour spinners and a designer of new Labour. It is the truth. New Labour is no different from the dome that it created: good on the outside, but nothing much on the inside. I support the Conservative motion.

Crime and Punishment

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The next item of business is another Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party debate, on motion S1M-1008, in the name of Phil Gallie, on crime and punishment, and amendments thereto.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

In his closing speech in the previous debate, Ben Wallace said that there are more important issues to debate here today. He was right. There is nothing more important than the security and well-being of our citizens. Justice and the law mean nothing unless they are perceived to satisfy the interests of the wider community.

The law has been designed to protect the interests of the weak and the innocent; but all too often it appears to favour the interests of the criminal rather than the victim. It is accepted that justice is not served when people are convicted of crimes they have not committed, but a balance must be found that ensures that those charged with the most violent and damaging offences cannot use technical judicial points or failures of the system to escape justice.

Justice belongs to all the people, not only to the learned fraternity of solicitors, advocates, Queen's counsels, sheriffs and judges. I agree with Johann Lamont, who on Sunday was quoted as asking:

"How can we have a system so out of kilter with the commonsense view of natural justice? The justice system is too precious to be left in the hands of the legal establishment."

I believe that Johann had a real point there that many people will identify with—albeit not too many in the legal fraternity. We have to be aware of public perceptions; if we do not address them, the system will be in danger of breaking apart. There is no room in a civilised society for people who take the law into their own hands.

With some justification, the public regard the criminal justice system as being under increasing pressure. People feel that far too often the deck is stacked in favour of the criminal and against the victim. We are all aware of the difficulties associated with convictions in rape cases; quite a number of instances come to mind. We must all be concerned about recent events in which dealers found guilty of being in possession of £30 million-worth of cocaine walked free because of a procedural foul-up. I found it incredible that, in a case local to me, a dealer who was hiding heroin in his body was freed because a wrong name had been inserted on a search warrant. That individual was later convicted of supplying a lethal dose of heroin to someone who regarded him as a friend. Some friend. There are many other examples that members will know of.

The perception of the system is more than justified, especially when we see it being bombarded from all sides—by the European convention on human rights, by reduced budgets, by falling police numbers, by reduced prison places, by increasing crime rates and by lighter sentences. The galling point is that all that follows an election campaign during which people who are now members of the Executive promised to be tough on crime. Putting policemen back on our streets and into our housing schemes was promised as a priority. I expected from the Liberals that those promises would not be kept; but, as an eternal optimist, I thought that new Labour might have meant what it said. I should have known better.

Victims' agony is being drawn out with ever lengthening delays in our courts. Those who are prepared to act as witnesses begin to wish that they had stepped aside as delays begin to affect their employment or business involvements.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

Mr Gallie suggests that budgets are falling. Will he say which ones he thinks are falling, given that the baseline budget of the justice department and of the Scottish Prison Service is rising year on year?

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

If we consider the reductions in the Prison Service, we find that budgets are not being kept in line with real-terms increases.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

They are rising.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Pension schemes and early retirement have a massive effect on police budgets; that has not been recognised. Overall, there is an underfunding that the Executive is failing to address.

I was referring to the ever lengthening delays in our courts. If a case eventually comes to court, the accused may be convicted of at least one offence and then sentenced. All too frequently, within the space of just a few months, someone who was given what the victim was told was a three-year sentence appears out of the blue, at the bus stop—or beside their victim in the local paper shop. The figures that we have seen demonstrate that.

We are told that the Executive will introduce a freedom of information bill. The priority should be to inform victims of crime what sentences in court really mean and to ensure that they are advised when prisoners are to be released. It should be explained that if a three-year sentence is given, periods of remand must be deducted and that a period of only 18 months in total will be served. That does not need a freedom of information act; all it requires is for the Executive to get its act together, to ensure that people who are directly affected are prepared for what can be a fairly traumatic encounter, particularly for the elderly.

A first step—

Richard Simpson (Labour, Ochil)

Before Phil Gallie moves on to his next point, will he explain what his party did during their 18 years in government to inform victims of exactly the same situation on remand? There has been no change. What did the Conservatives do?

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

The answer is simple—not enough. We took steps and sought assistance—

Richard Simpson (Labour, Ochil)

Eighteen years.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Yes. We did not exactly do well in that area—and in a moment I will mention another issue that we did not do well on. We are prepared to look back and acknowledge some of our mistakes; we want to look to the future and attempt to rectify them. That is what the debate is about. It is not about hiding behind figures, as happened in the previous debate. It is not about kidding on the public. It is about setting out in straight words the facts as we see them and moving forward.

I said, "A first step"—and I have lost my place.

I believe that the Executive needs to revisit sentencing policy. It is nonsense that someone who is sentenced for four years serves only 50 per cent of that period, irrespective of his or her attitude or behaviour in prison. I take no pride in having been part of a Government that introduced that measure, but I took some consolation from Michael Forsyth's late attempt to recoup the situation. Before other members jump up and down blaming the Tories, I must point out that when that measure was introduced, all the parties represented here today wanted to go further in liberalisation.

The effects of automatic remission and early release are reflected in the rising crime figures—a recycling effect is adding to the pressures on the courts and the Prison Service. Early release before adequate time for reflection leads to reoffending, additional burdens on the courts and similar complications for the Prison Service. Scottish Conservatives seek a system of conditional early release whereby remission will have to be earned and the maximum remission will be one sixth of a sentence's duration. My understanding is that the Crime and Punishment (Scotland) Act 1997 caters for that and that the minister can raise a statutory instrument at any time to bring such a measure into force. We would give him every assistance if he did that.

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

Phil Gallie seems to imply that early release is the cause of rising crime. He also seems reluctant to acknowledge that during the 18 years of Conservative government the number of crimes rose—from 340,000 in 1979 to 420,000 in 1997; eight more victims every hour under the Conservatives. If Phil is so concerned about victims, I do not think he needs to look at the early release scheme for the reasons; it is a general trend.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Is this an intervention or a speech?

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

I have one quick quotation.

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Very briefly, Mr Rumbles.

Mike Rumbles (Liberal Democrat, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine)

It is that

"crime has risen and continues to rise throughout the industrial democracies . . . It would be astonishing if patterns were not repeated.

The challenge is to deal with that situation".—[Official Report, House of Commons, 5 November 1996; Vol 284, c 1092.]

Does Phil Gallie recognise that? It was Bill Walker MP.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

If Mr Rumbles looks back at the previous law and order debate he will see that he asked the same question and that I gave him a more than adequate answer. I suggest he does his reading.

Crime did rise under the Tories—at the same time as the drug culture built up here and in the rest of the world. The key issue is that when the Tories left office, the crime figures were going down. Now, they are on the rise again.

It is my charge that in rape cases the judicial system favours the accused against the interests of the victim. Cross-examination of a victim by the person whom she or he believes to be their violator creates a situation in which the victim suffers the humiliation for a second time. How can a 13-year-old cope with that? Henry McLeish pledged to stop it when he was a Scottish Office minister. His pledge has gone the way of so many other promises made by new Labour in government. We are told that the European convention on human rights stands in the way, but it seems to me that the ECHR is breached by the status quo. I consider the ECHR to be a red herring in the matter of cross-examination of rape victims.

Senior civil servants giving evidence to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday stated that ministers had other concerns. In the interests of justice and the freedom of information the Minister for Justice holds so dear, I ask ministers to act now and, if they will not, to state clearly why they will not.

I urge ministers to look at the statistics and not to go soft on juvenile young offenders. Efforts have to be made to find new ways of diverting young people away from anti-social and criminal activity. I saw one of those last week, when I visited Rathbone Community Industry in Kilmarnock. I suggest that the impression that youth is an excuse for escaping responsibility for criminal acts is not one of those new ways. The police are constantly frustrated by the fact that when they catch youngsters under the age of 16 who have committed what many people would consider serious offences, after interview, they are turned back on the streets again to offend.

I have some figures that date back a year or two, to when the Tories were in power. They show that 15 youngsters in the Ayr constituency committed more than 800 offences—obviously repeat offences. As is obvious, they were caught and returned to the community. We must do something about that, but the minister's intentions towards young offenders will make the situation worse rather than better.

Scott Barrie (Labour, Dunfermline West)

Will Phil Gallie give way?

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

I do not have time. I am sorry.

I welcome this week's report from the minister on drugs and confiscation and the fact that its publication was timed for just before this debate—timely indeed. There are one or two issues, however, that I have to ask the minister about. I would like to know whether he intends to ensure that when drug dealers are charged, steps will be taken to freeze their assets at that point. The minister can answer me later, in his speech. I am short on time.

I would also like to ask the minister whether the special finance unit that he intends to set up will be properly resourced, with new people and new money to get it up and running. It will, perhaps, become self-financing later. I would like to think that money will go back into the law and order budget at that point.

I cannot accept either of the amendments to the motion. I cannot accept the SNP amendment because of its reliance on the ECHR which, through incorporation, has brought problems to our judicial process. We have agreed that we observe the ECHR all the way along the line, but its incorporation is the wrong aspect to consider.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

Will Phil Gallie give way?

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Yes.

George Reid (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Please wind up after the intervention, Mr Gallie.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

The ECHR is a critically important point to raise in this debate. A number of rights are safeguarded by it. It prohibits torture, slavery and forced labour and safeguards the right to liberty, security, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, all of which I would assume every member, including the Conservatives, would sign up to.

Mr Gallie has made great play of the effect of the ECHR, as have many other Conservative MSPs. Amendments relating to the ECHR that read across to the Human Rights Act 1998 were introduced at quite a late stage during the passage of what became the Scotland Act 1998. The Tories did not vote against the bill on second reading, or third reading, or during the Commons' consideration of the Lords' amendments.

Nor did the Tories raise any objection, as far as it is possible to discern, to the proposition that the Executive and Parliament should be required to act in a way that is compatible with the ECHR. Furthermore, the Conservative party did not vote against the second or third reading of the bill that became the Human Rights Act 1998. In the end, they gave the bill a fair wind and "wished it well".

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

One of the problems the Conservatives in Westminster have is that they do not benefit from the presence of Scottish Conservative MPs. My understanding was that Conservatives did vote against incorporation in the Scotland Act 1998, but I stand to be corrected if that was not the case.

Michael Matheson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

You have been.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

As well as the reference to the ECHR in the SNP amendment, I find Roseanna Cunningham's appeal for a body to look at public opinion on the effects of sentencing rather strange. The public opinion that I gauge is that of my constituents, and their opinions are pretty clear. I would not have thought that my constituents are that different from hers.

We can go along with the comments on witness support in the Executive amendment and on the confiscation aspects, but the suggestion that we are doing well on police numbers stretches the imagination. We cannot support that. Do not pussyfoot around with this motion. Accept it in good faith and do service to the people of Scotland.

I move,

That the Parliament notes that public confidence in the criminal justice system is at an all time low due to the Scottish Executive's failure to take effective steps to curb rising crime; recognises the frustration and anxiety felt by the victims of crime and the wider Scottish public arising from early prisoner release and asks the Scottish Executive to restore honesty in sentencing by ending automatic remission; further notes with concern the proposals to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 8 to 12 and to bring 16 and 17 year old offenders within the Children's Hearings System; calls upon the Executive to reject the proposals and demands that the Executive brings forward its proposals to strengthen the law in relation to the seizure and confiscation of assets suspected of being derived from drug dealing.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

There is no doubt that law and order and the principles governing crime and punishment are essential to the well-being of any society. I welcome today's debate as an opportunity to reject the simplistic solutions to complex problems that are being peddled by the Opposition—principally the Conservatives—and to show how the Scottish Executive is tackling in a positive way the issues that affect the people of Scotland.

First, however, I invite Mr Gallie to accept that his motion is inaccurate. It states that

"public confidence in the criminal justice system is at an all time low."

From recent events in Opposition parties, it appears that extreme confidence in the Scottish criminal justice system is being expressed. The SNP seems intent on using the system as an internal management tool for its party problems. Mr Gallie may wish to comment.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Perhaps the SNP is satisfied, but I draw the minister's attention to the comments made by Johann Lamont, from which I quoted and which she fully accepts.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

I have no idea to which comments Mr Gallie refers. I will move on to the substance of my speech, but I pause at this point to invite any further Conservative members who wish to cross the floor to do so.

Tricia Marwick (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Does the Presiding Officer not think it a bit worrying that a minister is sitting here who does not seem to understand the difference between civil and criminal law?

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

I welcome Tricia Marwick's pettiness. I will continue my speech.

I am very happy to engage in political hooliganism with Mr Gallie, but I think that law and order is far too important for that and if we cannot raise the level of debate, we genuinely do a disservice to the country. I want to explain our policy on law and order and then help the Opposition to understand the Scottish Executive's justice programme.

First, we are going to be tough on crime and on the criminals who blight our communities. Secondly, we are taking—and will take—action to prevent the causes of crime. Thirdly, we are going to prevent recidivism through alternatives to custody and the rehabilitation of offenders. Fourthly, and most important, we are pledged to support the victims of crime. How we treat victims and witnesses and how we deal with offenders is a measure of our progress and our civilisation.

We do not share the Opposition's belief that it is enough simply to react to crime, nor do we believe that locking people up will provide the answer. That has been tried and it has failed. Recorded crime in Scotland reached its highest level in 1991, after 12 years of the Conservative Administration. I intend to set out how our policy and programme for action are making an impact, even after only 12 short months.

Members of Opposition parties are the last people who can complain about high crime rates. None the less, we appreciate the anxiety that people may feel about crime, which is why we announced recently an additional £8.9 million for the police to help put more officers on the streets.

Although the level of additional money has been criticised in some quarters, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, Bill Robertson, who is the chief constable of Northern constabulary, said:

"I hear that some people have been quite grudging about it and started to question it, but I think today should be about celebration. Today, we should say thank you very much".

Bill Robertson was speaking as a chief constable when he made those comments. The eight chief constables in ACPOS have more than 30 years' service as chief constables and more than 200 years' service as police officers. They are more than qualified to decide what represents a step change in the quality of funding for the Scottish police service. Other chief constables, such as Sir Roy Cameron and John Orr, have also been enthusiastic about and appreciative of the extra resources and are committed to putting extra officers on the streets.

As well as the £8.9 million for recruitment, which is sufficient for more than 300 extra officers, we gave the police an additional £1.7 million for DNA testing. We are pledged to take tough action against drug dealers, about which I will say more shortly.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

At present, Strathclyde police alone has a shortfall of 350 officers. Both the Scottish Police Federation and ACPOS estimate that by the end of the year there will be a shortfall of 1,000 officers. The minister's measures for recruiting 300 officers hardly measure up to that shortfall.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

The previous highest level of police officers in Scotland was in 1997, under the Labour Government. We expect our announcements about the extra £8.9 million, with the funding of the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency and the additional officers that that funding will bring, to create record, or near record, levels of police officers on the streets of Scotland. Everyone in the chamber should applaud that.

We are taking tough action on dealers, which we have backed up with £10 million for the Scottish DEA to allow it to place an extra 100 officers in local police forces to tackle drug misuse. Taken with a 3.8 per cent increase in grant-aided expenditure, the police are receiving an increase of 6.6 per cent over last year. We believe that those resources will boost police numbers to record levels. However, just as we recognise that tackling crime is not a simple matter, neither is policing; given chief constables' knowledge and professionalism, they are best placed to deploy those resources.

Drug-related crime is one of the most serious issues facing society. The Scottish Executive is determined to deal firmly with the drugs issue, which is why we moved quickly to establish the Scottish DEA. The first ever director of the new agency was appointed on 25 February. His management team is in place and I formally launched the agency on 1 June. All that was achieved within six months of our announcement of our detailed plans. The creation of the Scottish DEA means that, for the first time, Scotland will have an organisation dedicated to tackling drug crime. It will build on the excellent work done by the enforcement agencies in trying to tackle those who profit from human misery.

The public have started to play a part in identifying the drug dealers. Nearly 200 calls have been received from the public, which the Scottish DEA is actively pursuing. The Executive calls on all Scotland—politicians, the police and the public—to join forces to deal with those people once and for all.

Prevention is clearly better than cure. We must get to the roots of crime if we are to prevent it occurring. It is a sad fact of life that children are sometimes involved in crime. We need to decide how best to deal with those cases. I am disappointed that the Opposition attempted to make political capital out of a serious and sensitive issue.

The Executive is not rushing into anything. In the context of the review of youth crime, we will ask the Scottish Law Commission to consider the age of criminal responsibility, which is currently set at eight years of age. Although there is no reason to think that that would put Scots law in breach of the ECHR, it remains an important issue for consideration. Eight is not the lowest age of criminal responsibility in Europe, but the Thompson and Venables case was a sharp reminder of how vital it is that the justice system deals effectively and sensitively with children who commit crime.

I therefore look forward to the Scottish Law Commission's response, which will inform the debate on this important issue. I make it absolutely clear that until the Scottish Law Commission has reported, in March 2000, no decision will be taken for or against a move to a higher age. Any decision will take into account the need to ensure that young children are treated fairly and that those who do wrong can be, and are, dealt with appropriately. Whatever we do, there will be no statistical fiddles: crimes will be recorded as crimes, whatever the culprit's age.

Young people are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. There are some very stark statistics. Sixteen to 24-year-olds account for 41 per cent of all persons convicted for crimes and offences and 4 per cent of all persons proceeded against in court. Most are young men. However, males aged 16 to 24 make up only 12 per cent of the total population. In the eight to 15 age range, around four times as many boys as girls are referred to children's panels on offence grounds.

We need to tackle this issue quickly, but in an effective and sustained way that makes young people face up to offending behaviour, promotes reparation to or mediation with victims—where that is desired or appropriate—and generally helps young people move into more responsible styles or patterns of living. Those are the right options for young offenders. There is no point in throwing young people into prison, where they learn the tricks of the criminal trade at an early age and, perhaps, turn into habitual criminals, if—and I stress the word if—there is a solution that better suits individual circumstances. That is why the Executive has responded so positively to the advisory group's report "It's a Criminal Waste: Stop Youth Crime Now".

Our response sets out how we intend to tackle this vital issue. We are not about offering soft options. We want challenging programmes and interventions that will give the public confidence that we are making communities safer and will address the needs and deeds of the young people concerned, to help them develop. That means effective measures for young people, whether they come through the court system or through the children's hearings system. It is best to follow programmes that work and are successful in changing the behaviour of young people. We want them to stop offending while they are on the programme and after they have finished it. That is the way to benefit those who are hit by crime.

Some have said that the children's hearings system does not work. We believe that it works well and has an excellent track record over the 30 years of its existence. Its philosophy of examining what causes the child to behave in a particular way, or to be at risk, and of taking steps to deal with those causes is a better and more effective approach than prison. We accept, of course, that it could be improved on.

One of the concerns identified by the youth crime review advisory group was the lack of an effective range of programmes to support the hearings system. We are addressing that by injecting £3 million of new money this year, rising to £4 million next year. That will pay for effective programmes to make young people confront their offending behaviour and to provide them with the education and preparation for employment that they need to stay out of trouble. We want such programmes to be part of the mainstreamed activity in each local authority and to be tailored to what is required there.

The Presiding Officer is indicating that I do not have a tremendous amount of time left, so I will finish by saying this. In the programme for government, we made the pledge that we would be tough on crime and on criminals. Today I have tried to set out the principles that we are following and the steps that we are taking to tackle crime now and to prevent it occurring in the future. We want to protect our communities from criminals. To do that, we must tackle criminal behaviour before it escalates, and break the cycles of reoffending.

That does not need to mean being soft on crime. It means being imaginative and ensuring that courts have effective disposals to hand. That is why we are determined to rehabilitate offenders, through training, education and work, and why we continue to put emphasis on alternatives to custody. It also means ensuring that the police have the necessary resources to tackle crime now and to reassure our communities that the Scottish Executive is taking crime seriously. That is why the justice department's budget is rising in real terms, why police expenditure is rising in real terms and why the prison budget is safe in our hands.

I move amendment S1M-1008.1, to leave out from first "notes" to end and insert,

"continues to support the Executive's policies on law and order and commends the priorities identified in the Programme for Government being taken forward by the Executive, including combating drug misuse as set out in the Drugs Action Plan Protecting our Future and through the creation of the Scottish Drugs Enforcement Agency which will fund an additional 100 officers in local forces, tackling youth crime, particularly persistent offenders, as set out in the Report It's a Criminal Waste: Stop Youth Crime Now and the Executive's response, helping witnesses by extending a volunteer Witness Service to all Sheriff Courts, and the injection of an additional £8.9 million for the police which is sufficient for forces to recruit a further 300 extra officers".

Roseanna Cunningham (Scottish National Party, Perth)

In my view, issues of crime and punishment cannot be reduced to simplistic slogans. Today we have had a typical Tory response on any law and order issue—totally unfocused, ill thought out and produced without any sense of responsibility for the effectiveness of what little was suggested. Listening to the Tories, people would be forgiven for assuming that crime rates went down between 1979 and 1997. Instead, they went up by about 40 per cent, if not more.

Mr Gallie might at least have the humility to admit that if there were an easy solution, 18 years would have been sufficient time to find it, but the Conservatives did not. Therefore, there can be only two conclusions: either he has to admit that there is no easy solution, or he has to admit that the 18 years of Tory rule were 18 years of incompetence in the area of law and order, because those are the only conclusions that the crime rate increase justifies on the basis of his own logic.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

I thought that Roseanna Cunningham had been present all the way through the debate; I acknowledged that crime rates went up under the Tories. I gave reasons for that. I said that I did not feel that everything that we did was perfect and correct, and that I wanted to look forward and do something about it. I pointed to the fact that crime levels had been coming down for the past—

Roseanna Cunningham (Scottish National Party, Perth)

Mr Gallie has already had a chance to make a speech. He should restrict his interventions to questions. I listened carefully to what he said, and what I heard is what I would describe as a farrago of simplistic nonsense, which did not deal with some of the complexities involved in the issue.

I want to focus on one or two issues that relate to the adequacy of resourcing of the system at all levels. I do not have a great deal of time, so I will cover only a few of the issues. My colleague Tricia Marwick will address the issue of victim services in more detail, but suffice it to say that right now the role of the victim in the process—we have seen plenty of headlines on that recently—and the role of victim services are hardly likely to inspire confidence. The Executive has to address that matter more urgently that it is currently doing. I am aware that some initiatives are on-going, but they are not anywhere near enough and they are not moving fast enough. I hope that the minister will address that directly.

The fiscal service is another area that is all too frequently overlooked, but it is equally vital. The suspicion continues that under-resourcing of the service leads to cases being marked for no proceedings, which has a direct impact on public confidence. We know from recent months that the courts have had problems that are of a particular origin, but I also know from conversations with sheriffs of my acquaintance—

Gordon Jackson (Labour, Glasgow Govan)

Name names.

Roseanna Cunningham (Scottish National Party, Perth)

I have heard from more than one sheriff that problems arise as a direct result of the lack of enough fiscals to cope with the work load in the criminal courts. That goes back to the comments that I made about the fiscal service.

That example shows a fundamental problem with the criminal justice system, which I admit is not easy to deal with. I do not look for a simple one-line answer. One cannot address one area in isolation without there being an immediate impact elsewhere. More police and more efficient policing inevitably lead to a greater clear-up rate and more cases referred to the fiscal, which means more stress on the fiscal service and more court time taken up. It is a circular system, which means that if one part of it is plucked, all of it will be affected. My concern is that that knock-on effect is too frequently overlooked, with troubling consequences.

Phil Gallie talked about public perceptions of sentencing and detention. I am always amazed at the ease with which Phil can refer to the numerous conversations that he has with his constituents, as if somehow we are to believe that it is not a self-selecting group. As politicians, we cannot ignore the issue of public confidence, but we need to test more carefully the true attitudes of the public, and not assume that the more lurid tabloid headlines necessarily reflect reality, which I fear is what Mr Gallie does.

In the past, I have seen research—I am sorry that I cannot give proper references, but this occurred to me only when I was listening to Mr Gallie—which suggests that when people are confronted by the realities of cases and potential disposals, their views about appropriate sentencing might not be as clear-cut as Mr Gallie seems to think. It would be useful if the Executive considered looking at attitudes to sentencing and detention, whether of youths or of adults, because there are some confused messages about.

Some of those confused messages relate to young people and to the apparent incidence of crime being committed by young people. The issue of the age of criminal responsibility has been raised before in the chamber. The truth is that Scotland has one of the lowest ages of criminal responsibility in Europe. Whether the Tories like it or not, it is almost certainly challengeable under the European convention on human rights. In my view—and in the view of a great many other professionals—that challenge will be successful. To refuse to consider it now would be utterly irresponsible. I accept the—

Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat, Glasgow)

Will the member give way?

Roseanna Cunningham (Scottish National Party, Perth)

I will run out of time, otherwise I would let the member in.

I welcome the review of the age, but the truth is that most young offenders go before the panel anyway. They go there for other reasons, allied with any crimes that they might have committed: truancy, substance misuse, being beyond control or whatever. Changing the age of responsibility will not change that, so I must challenge the Tories' approach to 16 to 18-year-olds. Do they really think that sending youngsters in their mid-teens to court for relatively minor offences will be helpful to anyone? It is not cost-effective and there is no evidence that it will deter repeat offending, which should be the fundamental aim of what we are trying to do with young people.

Although I know that this aspect is not entirely within his remit, I say to the minister that if the hearing system is to deal with the age groups that we are discussing, the issue of resourcing the appropriate disposals must be taken on board. I listened carefully to what he said about money. There is concern that that issue is not being taken on board. I know of one case in Glasgow: a 10-year-old boy who has not been to school in 18 months, has been on home supervision requirement for the whole period and has still not been allocated to a social worker. He is not offending now, but there is no guarantee that he will not do so.

That case is one of many. Sources in Glasgow City Council will privately admit that more than 600 child care cases are waiting to be allocated to a social worker. That is a big stumbling block when it comes to dealing with youth crime, and in regard to the initiatives that are being put in place. That is the point at which we can try to turn young people away from crime. I listened to the minister talking about money. What I really want to hear from him is whether he can guarantee that the money which he is talking about today will plug that gap right across Scotland. Otherwise, any youth crime initiatives will be undermined.

In the few minutes available, I could not hope to address all the relevant issues; my colleague Michael Matheson will deal with issues related to drug crime. However, I would appreciate it if, in his reply, the minister would spend a little more time talking about the resourcing of the system overall and the reality of the knock-on effect that one aspect of the system has on the other.

I move amendment S1M-1008.2, to leave out from first "notes" to end and insert:

"recognises that issues of crime and punishment are complex; contends that to ensure public confidence a criminal justice system requires to be effective, which in turn depends on adequate resourcing at every level; further recognises that there is some identifiable concern amongst the public about both current sentencing patterns and the effectiveness of detention; welcomes the fact that Scotland has human rights responsibilities as a result of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights; and calls upon the Scottish Executive to consider the establishment of an accurate review of public attitudes to sentencing and detention which would inform both the judiciary and the Scottish Prison Service and further to address urgently the current under-resourcing of all parts of the criminal justice system in Scotland."

Euan Robson (Liberal Democrat, Roxburgh and Berwickshire)

In contrast to the text of the motion, Phil Gallie's speech was more thoughtful than the usual Tory parcel of predictable prejudices. Clearly, we in the Justice and Home Affairs Committee are having a benign influence on him.

Essentially, ours is a law-abiding community: people respect and uphold the law. However, we must never be complacent about crime. As many members said in yesterday's debate, we must equip the police to deal with the ever more mobile, technologically sophisticated and well-resourced criminal. That is why the announcement of the Drug Enforcement Agency was right and proper. I welcome the extra 100 police posts created and look forward to the results of the officers' work.

The recent investment of just under £9 million in police forces across Scotland was also right and proper. The money will recruit more officers, especially if the level of efficiency savings for the next financial year is tempered. If more than 90 per cent of the bill for the police is the cost of manpower, efficiency savings must affect the number of staff. We therefore have to be careful not to give this year that which is taken away next.

Without question, however, there will be more officers on the beat and a more visible police presence in many areas—partly because civilians are increasingly replacing police in administrative tasks.

We have heard much about crime statistics in the debate—I do not wish to repeat them, other than to say that the highest level of recorded crime in Scotland was in 1991, at just under 600,000 offences. As Phil Gallie was good enough to acknowledge, the golden legacy—sometimes appearing in Tory press releases—is perhaps a little tarnished.

On funding, an answer to Sir Robert Smith MP in March 1999, on the year-on-year change in central Government funding for police in Scotland between 1979-80 and 1997-98, showed that in four years, there had been a real-terms cut. Those cuts took place in 1985-86, 1990-91, 1994-95 and 1996-97. The largest real-terms increase of 8.4 per cent occurred in 1997-98.

However, the public are more interested in plans to tackle crime than in trading figures from the past. Mike Rumbles referred to Bill Walker, who quite rightly said that

"crime has risen and continues to rise throughout industrialised democracies . . . It would be astonishing if patterns were not repeated.

The challenge is to deal with that situation".—[Official Report, House of Commons, 5 November 1996; Vol 284, c 1092.]

Keith Raffan will talk about tackling drugs misuse if he catches your eye, Presiding Officer—or rather, if he presses his request-to-speak button. We need to invest in education about the dangers of drugs; we must also invest in rehabilitation. Reducing demand and thus the illicit gain from drug dealing, together with enforcement, is the way forward. We can double, treble or quadruple enforcement but, without the other approach, as senior police officers of my acquaintance regularly tell me, the drug dealers who are removed are swiftly replaced and the vacuum is easily filled. We must prevent young people from experimenting with and using drugs, and rehabilitate those who are already users.

There is a real need to improve crime prevention measures by educating our citizens to protect themselves and by improving home security, perhaps in conjunction with home energy efficiency measures—such schemes are being piloted in some parts of Scotland. We must improve the design of buildings and of housing estates, and such seemingly mundane matters as upgrading street lighting could help. Perhaps we need to consider the grant-aided expenditure settlement for local government roads departments.

I now refer to offending by young people. At eight, Scotland has, as Roseanna Cunningham said, the second lowest age of criminal responsibility in Europe. In England and Wales, the age of criminal responsibility is 10. Even at 12, it would be lower than in the majority of European countries. In France, the age of criminal responsibility is 13 and in Italy and Germany it is 14. As Roseanna said, there will be a challenge under the European convention on human rights, and the Executive is right to review the matter now. If the Executive had just waited for a challenge, it would have been accused of failure to foresee the problem.

I am not aware of the proposal to bring 16 and 17-year-olds within the children's hearings system, as is suggested in the motion. The report of the independent think tank, facilitated by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, on ways forward in working with young people who have offended, got many of the issues right. The transition from the children's hearings system and adult courts is too abrupt and fails to acknowledge the gradual nature of undertaking adult responsibilities. The report proposes a number of important measures for young offenders. It commends

"greater incorporation of restorative justice approaches commensurate with age and maturity. Certainly for 16+, but for many younger people this would make sense to them as well".

The report also refers to the comprehensive use of arrest referral schemes, which would

"ensure that appropriate services such as drug and alcohol treatment, supported accommodation for those who are homeless and mental health services"

are made available at the point of arrest. The report stresses disposals such as probation with conditions, community service orders, drug treatment and testing orders and supervised attendance orders.

For younger children, we need to develop comprehensive cross-agency early intervention. There is a range of measures that we can build on to tackle truancy in schools, which is often the first step on a criminal path. Instead of exclusion from school, supported inclusion within mainstream education should help children to avoid the slippery slope into crime. We must enhance home visiting for children who are most in need and retain our focus on the prevention of child abuse. Early intervention should be seen as part of a child protection and welfare strategy, rather than a narrow crime prevention strategy, but it will help to prevent crime.

We must recognise the impact of domestic violence and abuse on the development of children, and how that can contribute to childhood behavioural problems and adult difficulties. There must be support to help compensate for the lack of significant adult role models in children's lives. Children whose main carers lead chaotic lives clearly run a severe risk of being offenders later in life.

I make a final plea to the minister. As Justice and Home Affairs Committee members saw when we went to Longriggend prison, there is a problem with remand prisoners. All remand prisoners are categorised as being in one category. They are all lumped together; the drug dealer and the drug user are in remand in the same place. We are in danger of ensuring that education in crime takes place. We ought to separate out types of offenders within remand, so that minor offenders can be rehabilitated and serious offenders kept separate.

We must take the law and order debate seriously. We must get away from what raises a cheer at Tory conferences and go on to the real issues that will make a meaningful difference to levels of crime. Selective amnesia is probably a necessary therapy for a party that leaves government for opposition, but today we have heard concessions from Phil Gallie about the record in the past. Let us build on the progress that we can make. I support the Executive amendment and its more constructive approach to tackling crime.

James (Conservative, Lothians)

Euan Robson talked about Longriggend. I would like to comment on prisons in the context of the call in the motion for

"effective steps to curb rising crime".

The Scottish Prison Service is going through massive upheaval. Last November, it was announced that there are plans to reduce staffing levels among the officers by some 400. What makes that more astonishing is that over the past 10 years, the prison population has increased by 1,300. While the prison population has been on an upward trend, the number of prison officers will be substantially decreased. There will be closures, mothballings and mergers. Penninghame, Dungavel and Longriggend are all to close, as well as Peterhead special unit.

That has caused dismay in the Scottish Prison Officers Association to such an extent that its general secretary, Derek Turner, said:

"We can only say that our savings have been stolen by the Scottish Executive".

He went on to say that there were no words to describe the betrayal and that the association was extremely worried about overcrowding and violence. The £13 million stolen from the service was going to fund the new Drug Enforcement Agency. He described it as an affront and betrayal to the Scottish people and their public service.

It appears that the Executive has, at the same time, released a considerable number of violent offenders. In 1999, the figure was 185, through early release—those released had committed crimes including culpable homicide, assault with deadly weapons and attempted murder. Early release on that scale is considered to be inappropriate by a substantial proportion of the public, who would like stronger protections to be put in place.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

Does Lord James Douglas-Hamilton accept the comments by Clive Fairweather, HM chief inspector of prisons in Scotland, when the proposals for the closure of the establishments that he mentioned were announced? Clive Fairweather welcomed the proposals because of the nature of the facilities and the structure of the buildings that were to be closed. He indicated that the services were better provided elsewhere.

James (Conservative, Lothians)

I have Clive Fairweather's statement in front of me. He said:

"The main job of prisons in Scotland is to protect the public from violent or persistent criminals—and to reduce the future number of victims of crime."

I am especially concerned about whether Peterhead prison will be closed. When Angus MacKay has been asked about that in the past, he would not say whether it will be closed. I am especially concerned about that, because sex offenders in Scotland go there in considerable numbers. As the minister will be well aware, there is a code of honour among criminals. Those who attack or harm children can be extremely badly treated in Scotland's prisons. Therefore, they are taken to Peterhead prison, where special educational and rehabilitation programmes are in operation. At some time, many of those individuals are likely to come back into the community, so it is extremely important that the programmes that are in place ensure that they do not reoffend in the future.

If Peterhead was closed, great instability would be introduced into the Scottish Prison Service and a body of expertise that has been built up steadily over the years would be removed. I hope that the Executive will not go down that path.

In the statement to which the minister referred, Mr Fairweather did not call for Peterhead to be closed. I believe that that would be a retrograde step, which would be very damaging to the Scottish Prison Service, because it would mean that sex offenders would not receive the intensive education and rehabilitation programmes that they need. If those people are distributed throughout the Prison Service in a way that is not thought out, enormous harm will be done.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

As Lord James Douglas-Hamilton knows, the Peterhead issue that he raises is part of an on-going Scottish Prison Service estates review. We await the result and recommendations of that review.

On the issue of addressing offending behaviour and providing rehabilitation regimes for sex offenders, such regimes do not solely exist in Peterhead but are delivered in other prisons. Any decision about Peterhead—should it come to that—would not necessarily imply the end of the provision of such rehabilitation regimes in other prisons or elsewhere. In fact, it should be put on record that it certainly would not imply the ending of such regimes.

James (Conservative, Lothians)

I remind the minister of what Clive Fairweather said. At the end of his statement, referring to the closure of four prisons, he said:

"I doubt if there has ever been such an announcement made about prisons in Scotland for over 100 years."

The closure of Peterhead prison would be going much further. Of course, I accept that the education and rehabilitation programmes are not restricted to one prison—nor should they be. I am suggesting to the minister that a body of expertise has been built up there. I believe that he has plans to close that prison; otherwise he would be clearing the air this morning. If he closes that prison, his action will be condemned by the entire Prison Service in Scotland. It will be a bad move, because it will mean that sex offenders will not be given the same excellent treatment that they receive at present.

We want to ensure that those people do not reoffend. Communities may not welcome them with open arms when they come out, but every step has to be taken to ensure that the best possible service is maintained. That service is seriously at risk. As long as the minister leaves this question up in the air, there will be dismay in the Prison Service.

Cathy Jamieson (Labour, Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

I will concentrate on young people in the criminal justice system. First, I want to make it clear that the majority of young people are not criminals or young offenders. There is sometimes a danger that we forget that when we see headlines about "teeny terrors" or whatever. It is true that there are young people who indulge in criminal activity. Our communities want to tackle that, and I certainly want to tackle it, but we should put things in context.

The report of the advisory group on youth crime suggested that perhaps between 1,000 and 1,200 persistent young offenders are dealt with in the children's hearing system annually. We have to think about targeting the resources that are needed to tackle those cases. We should remember that the vast majority of children who come before the hearing system do so because their welfare needs require to be met.

We should also remember that the failure to bridge the gap between the children's hearing system and the adult court system—young people who are aged 16 or 17 suddenly find themselves in the adult court system—leads to a disproportionate number of young men, in particular, ending up in Longriggend and other institutions that have been mentioned this morning.

The Tories have a bit of a cheek to talk about reannouncements from the Executive, given that they reannounce speeches the whole time. I am sure that I heard Phil Gallie's speech in this debate several years ago. There are no new ideas or ways forward, and nothing positive is being suggested.

In contrast to that, the Executive should be congratulated on commissioning the report, "It's a Criminal Waste: Stop Youth Crime Now", and on its response. Roseanna Cunningham raised the issue of time scales, but the report clearly underlines the time scales. The Executive has made it clear that it wants early expansion of the range and availability of effective, community-based intervention programmes for young offenders. There are a number of good schemes around Scotland, which could be used as a model.

Those are not soft options. I challenge anybody who thinks that to spend a week during the summer recess working with one of the projects, talking directly to the young people and staff involved and doing something constructive by finding out about the projects and getting some new ideas.

The report also talks about ensuring access to the range of interventions for persistent offenders up to the age of 18 for procurators fiscal and the courts. The Scottish Executive accepts that recommendation and is looking to put some resources into it in the short term.

We know that the children's hearing system has for many years been a subject of worldwide scrutiny because of its success. Things can change and the Executive has said that it will examine what can be done in future, including the feasibility of bringing 16 and 17-year-olds who require such a service into the system. I know that there are people in the Conservative party who serve on children's hearings, who think that that is not a bad idea.

The Presiding Officer is indicating that I ought to wind up, so I will confine my final remarks to promoting something positive for young people. SACRO—Safeguarding Communities, Reducing Offending in Scotland—operates a scheme that brings together young people who have offended with the victims of their crimes and examines how reparation can be made. We ought to support such a scheme.

In some instances, young people cause problems, but they can also be part of the solution. In my constituency, a group of young people in Bellsbank, which would usually be described as a very deprived community, have come together with the local community policeman to produce information for a peer education project that will address the causes of offending behaviour and try to get the message across. That is how we should progress.

We should look constructively at the solutions. It is not good value for money to lock people up simply because they are too poor to pay their fines. The Executive is committed to addressing that issue. I look forward to that. The report is good. The way forward is good. We should take things forward on a cross-party basis, and so ensure that our communities are the safe places that we want them to be.

Irene McGugan (Scottish National Party, North East Scotland)

We are told that children and young people were responsible for more than 42,000 crimes and offences last year, which is an increase of 6 per cent on a rate that has been rising steadily for years. It therefore follows that we need to rethink current practice. We need to reduce levels of youth crime, restore public confidence and improve community safety. However, the debate is not simplistic; it is not about hard or soft options. The aim must be to find strategies and policies that work, which address offending behaviour and divert young people from prison.

The proposal that the age of criminal responsibility should increase from eight, as it must, is less of an issue than by how much it should be raised and when. The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child levelled criticism at the UK Government on the matter as long ago as 1995. The Conservatives' argument that raising the age of criminal responsibility will allow young criminals to get off with it is totally spurious.

I remind Phil Gallie and others that the strapline of the Scottish Children's Reporter Administration is care and justice. The Kilbrandon committee gave reasons—which remain valid—why that is appropriate. The principle of dealing with juvenile justice cases and care and protection cases in the same forum, subject to the same procedures, and, crucially, accessing the same resources, remains valid. As we have heard, the strength of the hearing system is that it deals with the whole person and not just the offending behaviour.

Many people working in social work have been concerned for some time about the abrupt transfer from the children's hearing system to the adult criminal justice system, often with supervision orders being discharged just before a person's 16th birthday, which results in very young people with very troubled backgrounds being put in prison to no good effect.

Statistics from one local authority are very revealing. They show that in the year leading up to March 2000, of the total number of 16 to 18-year- olds who received community service, more than one third had previously been in care or involved in the child protection system. Furthermore, of those 16 to 18-year-olds who received probation, more than two thirds had previously been in care or involved in the child protection system; of the group who received custodial sentences, half had previously been in care or involved in the child protection system in some way. I suggest that that is more than enough evidence of the impact of social background factors to merit a very serious reassessment of resource allocation, perhaps towards more robust fostering services.

The Conservative motion implies that it would be totally unacceptable to refer 16 to 18-year-olds to the hearing system. I disagree. However, persistent offenders in that age range require something more than the options and disposals that are currently available. Alternative measures would need to be put in place before greater numbers of youngsters are referred.

A broad range of community-based resources, adequately funded and supported by all agencies, would help to tackle the complexity of problems faced by young people. That would make a saving to the public purse by transferring resources from residential schools, prisons and secure accommodation, although I accept that those facilities will always be needed for some people. However, that is not an easy option and it might just work.

Johann Lamont (Labour, Glasgow Pollok)

When I heard Phil Gallie commenting favourably on something that I said, I was tempted to throw away my speech, throw up my hands and admit total defeat. I certainly do not know what that will do for my credibility in the Labour party. We shall have to wait and see.

It is important to recognise that we are debating a complex issue. One of my concerns about the approach of the Tories is the suggestion that there are all these easy solutions that are just sitting there, waiting for the political will to pick them up and run with them. We do a disservice to those who suffer most from crime to suggest that it is as easy as that.

It is important that we take the debate around crime and disorder out of the ownership of the Conservatives. Crime is a concern in all our local communities. In the recent past, I have dealt with very specific and troubling cases where constituents have been concerned about sentencing decisions that they cannot understand or where they have had horrific experiences as the victims, or relatives of the victims, of crimes. People also have great concerns about the way in which bail agreements are reached, because they believe that the result is detrimental to their rights. Even when we discuss more local issues such as housing, they are often linked to questions of youth disorder in the local community. There are anxieties about policing decisions. People feel frustrated that the police do not respond quickly enough to incidents that take place on the doorstep.

I agree with Roseanna Cunningham that at the heart of the debate is the issue of confidence. Those who have been accused of a crime must believe that they will get a fair trial. However, the victims of crime must believe that they, too, will get a fair hearing. Our communities, including elderly people who have been harassed by youngsters or residents who have been harassed by their neighbours, must believe that their concerns are being taken seriously and must have confidence that the police will respond to local priorities. Similarly, our young people must feel that they have the right not to be moved on and harassed simply because they are young; they ought not to be judged by their age or have presumptions made about their behaviour.

I will briefly touch on the question of children's panels. Before I became an MSP, I worked with young people who were saved by that early intervention and by the willingness of the legal system to look beyond a child's behaviour to what had caused that behaviour. It is not an easy process and often calls parents to account in a difficult way. It would be to our detriment to have a system that said that we believe that young people at the ages of 12 and 13 are beyond the pale and cannot be saved. We know that locking up our young people does not work.

Recently, we have seen a good example of the importance of having confidence in the system. We have had a debate on the cross-examination of witnesses in sexual crimes. I believe in the right of people to be considered innocent until proven guilty. However, no one has been able to explain to me why that important principle would be damaged by introducing a general category of crimes where a defence is pursued through a third party.

Unlike the Conservatives, I am committed to the European convention on human rights, but we need to understand that we have to defend the rights of all, including those who are accused of crime and those who have suffered it. In the past few days, there has been a concerted and ferocious attack on those who have been making the argument about protecting victims in such cases. I have been shocked by the ferocity of the attack, for while we may argue about the solutions to the problem, the fact that there is a problem is self-evident.

We have heard accusations that we want to deny people their human rights. It has been suggested that rape cases are pursued inappropriately to court when they are unlikely to lead to a conviction; in fact, the women's organisations are saying that the big concern is that rape cases go unreported because women are frightened of what will happen to them in the system. It has been suggested that this is about the special agendas of women's groups—that the legal profession gives us considered advice while the rest of us are in the business of special pleading. Quite offensively, it has also been suggested that women, and others who are campaigning on this question, are chasing tabloid headlines. The reality, too often, is that women in rape trials have been at the wrong end of tabloid headlines. To suggest that people are in the business of chasing such headlines is offensive.

Women's organisations at the sharp end of supporting women who have been the victims of sexual crimes have sought not publicity, but equal access to justice. If women's organisations, those who support children and those who campaign on behalf of victims had not campaigned long and hard, there would have been no change in the process that is now trumpeted as sufficient safeguard against harassment. There would have been no video links, no special arrangements for children and no discussion around inappropriate questioning. Those were all, at one time, feared and resisted on the basis of the rights of the accused.

At the heart of the serious debate about options, there must be close scrutiny of what the judicial process does and how that works out in our local communities. We need more transparency about what judges are asked to do. We need a police force that is linked more closely with its local communities and their priorities. There must be an acknowledgement that, while we are told that we are all equal under the law, many groups in our society have the strong feeling that there are still some who are more equal than others. For as long as citizens feel that way—even if the feeling is ill founded—and we do nothing at all about it, we will have a problem in sustaining a fair system of justice, because our justice system will be undermined by people's lack of confidence in it.

Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat, Glasgow)

I will go back, if I may, to the Tory motion. What is it about the Tories when it comes to law and order? We know, and they know, that the causes of crime are complex, yet a glazed look seems to come over their faces when the subject of law and order is raised. Even the most reasonable Tories—and Phil Gallie is not necessarily always the most reasonable of them—seem to be programmed in that way.

We all know from what we see on television that the surest way to popularity at Conservative conferences is to rant and rave about the tide of criminals that are pillaging and robbing their way across the country and how they all ought to be horsewhipped and locked up for ever. When the Tories were in power, as a number of speakers have said, that sort of approach—even when it was moderated by the responsibilities of Government—produced overflowing prisons at huge and ineffective expense to the public. Remember the short, sharp detention centres that provided a short, sharp training course on how to become a more successful criminal? Did that stem the crime surge? No. The result of such policies, under the Conservatives, was eight additional crimes an hour.

I am not one of those people who say that Governments create crimes; that fallacy is sometimes put across in debates such as this. The fact is that crimes have many causes; I will use some figures to illustrate that. A 1997 survey at Polmont young offenders institution revealed that 41 per cent of offenders had been in special education facilities as children; 82 per cent had truanted; 83 per cent had been suspended from school; and 55 per cent had been expelled or excluded from school. Surely those figures tell us something about the basis of crime and the reasons that lie behind it.

Crime has many causes. There is a proven and major link between addictive substances—alcohol and drugs—and crimes of both violence and dishonesty. The problem will not be solved by posses of justice ministers on white horses going around the place curbing crime.

My main point relates to the procedures of the law, so castigated by Phil Gallie in his opening speech. In my time, I have been both a criminal defence lawyer and a procurator fiscal depute, so I have seen something of the legal system from both sides. Nobody should be convicted of a criminal offence except on solid and convincing evidence. That does not stop reforms in the legal procedures, but—and this is a basic fact—arbitrary power, in the hands of the state and its law enforcement officers, would produce the very situation that Phil Gallie goes on about: the collapse of confidence in the legal system and the crucial knock-on damage to confidence in the police and their ability to do their job.

Our traditions have been buttressed by ECHR regulations to which, to its credit, a more sensible Conservative Government of an earlier age signed up. I have a direct question for the Conservatives. Phil Gallie is rightly concerned about the trauma suffered by a 13-year-old in court undergoing cross-examination in a rape case; however, what spasm of neanderthal logic makes the Tories want to haul eight-year-old boys and girls before the criminal courts?

Although there is a serious debate to be had on that issue, this is not it. This kind of motion wastes the Parliament's time when we should be more closely examining the real and basic causes of crime. The Scottish Executive—and Governments of all persuasions—have done much good work on the issue. The dividing line between today's proposition that a swing of the sword can sort out all the problems—

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Will the member give way?

Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat, Glasgow)

No, I am finishing on this point. The dividing line between today's proposition that a swing of the sword—

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Will Mr Brown give way? He did ask us a question.

The answer to that question is the nature of the crime, not the individual. Although I am very sympathetic to many of the points that have been raised about looking after children, eight to 12-year-olds must be held responsible for serious offences.

David (None, Lothians)

We are now over time.

Robert Brown (Liberal Democrat, Glasgow)

My concluding comment is a response to Mr Gallie. The Conservatives do not understand the basic philosophy of the children's hearing system. The system is not based on criminal responsibility, but on the need for care and protection of vulnerable children who might have committed crimes.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

It is quite facile to pretend that this is not a complex matter, and the Conservatives generally accept that simplistic solutions are not necessarily the answer. However, an injection of realism is sometimes needed in the debate.

The fact is that the children's panel system, which the minister has advanced as an outstanding success, has been a dubious success. The Kilbrandon committee did not get it right. I attended a children's panel hearing on Friday, and accept that the system fulfils an admirable role in the treatment of children at risk. However, the system is frankly impotent in dealing with persistent and determined young offenders and, as a result, is losing credibility. If the system has been so successful and is admired throughout the world, why has no one else copied it? The reason is that it does not work with young offenders.

Like Robert Brown, I have seen both aspects of the juvenile system. As a Glasgow magistrate and justice of the peace, I have sent more than my fair share of people to prison over the years, but I never did so lightly. I can assure the chamber that no judge at any level sends anyone to prison unless there is no alternative. Although sending people to prison is a terrible thing to do—and I was never comfortable doing so—it had to be done in the greater interests of society.

That said, I am perhaps one of the few in this Parliament with a criminal conviction. When I was 13, I was fined the princely sum of 2s 6d for the heinous offence of street football. We fully accept that there is a case for not sending youngsters to a criminal court for very minor matters. However, if we increase the age of criminal responsibility to 12—with which there is an ECHR problem—what do we do with an eight-year-old, nine-year-old or 11-year-old who commits murder? There have been instances of such crimes in the UK. For example, there was a deliberate stabbing in Glasgow not so long ago. How do we cope with such a serious offence?

Scott Barrie (Labour, Dunfermline West)

In his opening remarks, Bill Aitken condemned the children's hearings system by saying that it fails young people who have committed an offence. He then talked about a possible increase in the age of criminal responsibility. Does he accept that one of the great advantages of the children's hearings system, as Johann Lamont said, is that it does not deal only with why someone is there but with their entire background? That is why the system is valuable. Committing a criminal offence is only one of 17 grounds of referral to a hearing. There are 16 other reasons why young people appear before children's hearings. Surely that is the point that we should be addressing.

Bill Aitken (Conservative, Glasgow)

The input of the children's panel system in relation to children at risk or in homes in which we would prefer them not to be is invaluable. However, the system lacks teeth and does not cope with the criminal aspect, a fact that is demonstrated by the recidivism rate.

The interventions that were referred to earlier are not sufficiently challenging to stop repeat offenders. It is a pity that Cathy Jamieson is not here, as my point is relevant to what she was saying. We have to educate the offenders to give them a better prospect of employment, but I would be uncomfortable if we came to a point when offenders got a better education than non-offenders.

If the age range of the children's panel is increased, we could see the farcical situation in which a 17-year-old will be brought before a children's panel for beating up his wife. I doubt that that we want to arrive at that situation.

I firmly support Phil Gallie's motion.

David (None, Lothians)

Three more members wanted to be called to speak but there is no time. I appeal to the winding-up speakers to stick rigidly to time as we have a ministerial statement to follow.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The issue of tackling drug abuse should be central to this debate. The number of injecting heroin addicts in Glasgow is estimated at between 12,500 and 15,500. The figure for Scotland—which I think is an underestimate given by the Executive—is more than 30,000. The addicts in Glasgow steal, burgle and shoplift an estimated £190 million a year to finance their habit. The figure for Scotland is probably more than £400 million. That is the scale of the problem that we are dealing with. In some of our prisons, more than 70 per cent of inmates are in for drug-related offences. Many of them, quite frankly, should not be in prison at all.

The Executive deserves credit for instituting the drug testing and treatment orders. I hope that the minister will tell us how many offenders are undergoing treatment as a result of the orders. I understand that there are worryingly few, but then, of course, the system operates in only two pilot areas: Fife and Glasgow. The orders demonstrate an attempt to establish alternatives to prison and divert problematic drug users away from the prison system into treatment, where they belong.

I would like a pilot scheme on drug courts to be introduced. Such a scheme would relieve pressure on our courts and prisons. It makes no sense to send an addict to prison at an average cost of £27,000. As I saw in Saughton prison, some of the inmates have the courage to get off drugs. However, they are then put into drug-free zones where they get little support, treatment or counselling. When released, they return to the people they knew before and the places where they used to live, relapse into addiction, reoffend and end up back in prison.

Prison for them is not a sensible use of public money. We must break that cycle. If those problematic drug users can get treatment in prison and then get into halfway houses, or through-care as provided by the Simpson House drug project in Edinburgh, we have an excellent chance of preventing them from relapsing and reoffending upon release. That makes sense. I am not calling for public spending that will go down the drain. I want public investment that will bring a return. If we can guarantee treatment for those people so that they can recover and gain employment, they will cease to be a drain on our finances and will become contributors to our economy and taxes.

The Scottish Prison Service has produced a drugs strategy. I have reservations about the Prison Service and its lack of openness. I hope to meet the minister to discuss some of the problems in detail. That service must be made far more accountable, not just to the minister but to this Parliament. When I meet the minister, I shall give him details of my experience when the service has not been open.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Will Keith Raffan give way?

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

No. I am sorry, but I have very little time left.

I hope that we can have a debate on the Scottish Prison Service's drugs strategy in the near future, which will include consideration of whether mandatory drug testing is a worthwhile investment of public money. I share Dr Richard Simpson's reservations on that issue. In a debate not so long ago, he outlined his reservations far more eloquently than I could have done. We also need to look to the CARATs scheme in England and learn from its experience.

I have to wind up, although I would have liked to go on to talk about the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency. Let us hope that we can have a debate on that agency in the near future.

In The Herald today, Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh says that she has left the Tories because of their

"appeal to base prejudices which I find wholly unacceptable and highly offensive."

Among that party's members I have respect for Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, but the Tories must stop appealing to base prejudice. It is time that they developed an intelligent and thoughtful approach on these issues, rather than the base prejudice that they continually display. I believe that they will pay a huge price for that, resulting in defeat at the next general election.

Michael Matheson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

In Tory debates on law and order, members are often left wondering what the Tories will do. Their motion for this debate was confusing and unclear, and some of the points that are raised in the motion have not been addressed.

This debate illustrates the fact that there is no simple way of tackling the problem of crime in Scottish society. Unfortunately, the Tories are trying to pander to the prejudice of the headline, and are calling for tougher sentencing while ignoring the root causes of crime.

Phil Gallie's main explanation for the increase in crime in Scottish society centres on the problems in the remand system. Although there are problems in the remand system, the issue of crime in our society is much more complex. He also mentioned that people have been acquitted on procedural grounds and that the justice system is failing people. In 18 years of Tory Government, was no one acquitted? Were no mistakes made? Let us be honest: mistakes will be made in the future as well. We must try to limit them as far as we can, but it is folly to kid on that mistakes have started to occur only in the past couple of years.

I have sat next to Phil Gallie in the Justice and Home Affairs Committee in recent weeks, and I have noticed, as Euan Robson has noticed, that his manner seems to have mellowed somewhat towards crime issues. That may be the commonsense revolution arriving at Phil Gallie's door, although I never saw Phil Gallie as the new face of the Tories' justice policy.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

He is said to be in the mainstream.

Michael Matheson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

Maybe.

One of the major causes of crime is the misuse of drugs. It is shameful that, after securing this debate on crime, the only issue that the Tories have raised, in relation to the drugs problem in Scotland, concerns the confiscation of assets. That is only one part of the equation; a multitude of other measures must be deployed—some of which Keith Raffan has touched on—to deal with the drugs problem.

Phil Gallie (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Will Michael Matheson give way?

Michael Matheson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

No. I have very little time.

Although the confiscation of assets is a useful measure, we must try to deal with the root causes of crime.

Let us be quite clear: we have to deal with enforcement; we have to consider getting prisoners with a drug problem off drugs; and we have to improve our rehabilitation services. There are question marks over whether the policies that are being pursued by the Executive sufficiently address getting the balance right. In my view, the balance may be tipped too much towards enforcement and not enough towards rehabilitation and support services, to break the cycle of people continually committing crime. People go to prison because they have committed a crime due to a drug problem, and when they get back out, they do exactly the same thing.

The causes of crime are often linked to people's poverty, to their social circumstances. If we are to be realistic in our efforts to address the problems of crime in our society, we must also be committed to being holistic in our approach. If we are to reduce crime in Scotland, we must do so from a platform that is based on facts and not on headlines.

I ask members to support the amendment in Roseanna Cunningham's name.

David (None, Lothians)

Thank you, especially for sticking to the time.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

This has been an interesting debate and we have covered an enormous amount of ground in the past hour and a half—culminating, somewhat bizarrely, in Michael Matheson recommending himself as the personal rehabilitation project for Phil Gallie. That is an onerous undertaking and we all wish him well in that enterprise.

I will try to pick up on some of the points that have been directed at the Executive. One of the big issues that has been raised has been the increase in recorded crime. A wide range of factors influence the incidence of crime.

For example, the number of non-sexual crimes of violence increased by 11 per cent in 1999. Within that total, there was a 17 per cent increase in crimes of handling an offensive weapon. However, that is an example, at least in part, of crime rates increasing because of sustained efforts by the police to tackle the culture of violence. It is clearly better to have weapon carrying detected than to have violent crime committed with the weapon. That is an example of positive, proactive policing affecting the crime rate. Similarly, encouraging women to report domestic violence and supporting the victims mean that more crimes are reported.

By contrast, specific campaigns by the police to detect and prevent crime can have the effect of reducing crime rates. For example, the 5 per cent reduction in 1999 in house-breaking is undoubtedly partly due to the kind of special efforts undertaken by forces based on intelligence-led policing. It is important that we look behind some of the figures and avoid knee-jerk reactions.

I would like to talk about victims. In my opening remarks, I said that the fourth strand of our strategy concerned victims. In the past, there has sometimes been a view that victims are there solely for the benefit of the criminal justice system. We think that the opposite is true: we think that the system should be there for the victims. Our strategy is to ensure that there is a co-ordinated approach to services for victims across the criminal justice system and across other agencies that have contact with victims. We look to those agencies to develop services within the framework of the strategy and to monitor how well those services meet victims' needs.

Tricia Marwick (Scottish National Party, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Will the member give way?

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

Not at this point.

We continue to support the victims of crime through funding to Victim Support Scotland—£1.2 million this year, which is up 9 per cent from last year, goes towards meeting the cost of local victim support services. Those local services are at the sharp end. They provide much-needed direct help and support to victims of crime. The grant that VSS receives pays for a network of 29 area services, 68 locally based employees, and the recruitment and training of 750 volunteers. A further £700,000 is being provided this year for VSS to roll out the witness service in sheriff courts. Additional funding is also being provided to support VSS's national headquarters. In total, therefore, VSS will receive more than £2.2 million from the Executive this year.

In December 1999, we announced the roll-out of the volunteer witness service to all sheriff courts in Scotland. We see it as vital for witness—especially those who are also victims—to have access to support, reassurance and information. For many people, appearing in court is stressful and upsetting. The witness service volunteers can help in a range of ways; for example, by arranging court visits, by explaining procedures, or simply by spending time sitting with a witness who is waiting to be called.

I do not want to leave the issue of the support that we give to victims without mentioning a particular and real concern that has been expressed by members and which was discussed on Tuesday by the Justice and Home Affairs Committee—the issue of rape victims being cross-examined by their alleged attackers. I want to make it clear that ministers have instructed officials that proposals be developed to prevent an accused person who has been charged with a sex offence from cross-examining a victim personally, and to strengthen the provisions restricting cross-examination on sexual history. It is not a question of whether we intend to do it, but of how. Scottish ministers are committed to achieving that policy and work has begun on assessing how we can do it. We recognise that we must balance the need to protect witnesses and their rights with the rights of the accused in a way that is consistent with the ECHR.

The debate offers some interesting contrasts. We have an Executive that concentrates on delivering, a partnership between Labour and the Liberal Democrats that was criticised at its outset but that has many concrete achievements. Today we can contrast that with the blood feuds that are breaking out in the Opposition parties.

Roseanna Cunningham (Scottish National Party, Perth)

As if Labour never had any.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

The hard right is attacking the mad right in the Conservative group—and it is sometimes difficult to distinguish who is a member of which tendency. In the SNP the fundies and traditionalists are tearing each other apart. Alex Neil must be wondering when the midnight knock is going to come on his door.

Let us look at the record of this Administration. We have given the police resources sufficient to boost policing numbers to record levels. We have set up the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency, with a £10 million budget, to target the dealers. We are rolling out the witness service to all sheriff courts in Scotland. More than £21.4 million extra is being made available to give courts the full range of options for disposing of offenders. Ministers have instructed officials to develop proposals to prevent those charged with a sexual offence from cross-examining a victim personally. We are supporting the recommendations of the youth crime review and ensuring that offenders face up to the consequences of their crime.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Before he closes, will the minister undertake to give a detailed breakdown of spending to tackle drug misuse on enforcement, treatment and prevention? I am happy to put down a written question to facilitate the answer. We do not have the breakdown of the figures so we cannot make up our minds whether the proportions are right.

David (None, Lothians)

The minister is on his last minute.

Angus MacKay (Labour, Edinburgh South)

I will not reply in detail at the moment. That information will be forthcoming when we publish the policy unit's work, which has been done, and further work will be undertaken.

We have spent an additional £1.7 million on DNA testing. We have ensured that justice department baselines will have increased by more than £100 million between 1998-99 and 2000-02. That is a real-terms increase of £40 million. We have ensured that the prison budget will have increased by £32 million in the same period. The finances of the infrastructure, the framework of our criminal justice system in Scotland, are safe.

The Executive has set out its stall in our commitment to creating a safe and fair Scotland. We have introduced practical and effective policies to combat crime and the scourge of drugs in our communities. We are committed to tackling the problem of persistent reoffending and to rehabilitate offenders through training, education and work and through alternatives to custody. We have put in place imaginative and deliverable policies to support the victims of crime and we are working to protect the most vulnerable members of our society. We have done all that in just one year.

I commend the Executive's approach to members and invite members to support the Executive's amendment to the motion.

Lyndsay McIntosh (Conservative, Central Scotland)

I am conscious of the time and wish we had more of it. I will judiciously cut out half of my speech.

What a debate—everything that was known to be happening on crime and punishment but which the Executive is too scared to confront. I excuse Mr Wallace and his Liberal-Democrat colleagues from that because they promised to be tough on crime and its causes. To truly deliver on such a pledge you must be proactive, not reactive.

Things, we were assured, could only get better; yet the Scottish people live in greater fear of crime today than they ever have. We can list the reactive measures taken by the Executive more easily than we can list measures taken proactively. I will only mention two: the Ruddle muddle and temporary sheriffs. To cap it all, we are now seeing rising crime rates, prison closures, falling numbers of prosecutions and falling police numbers. That directly contradicts the social justice rhetoric that I and others here had to listen to at recent elections. That rhetoric is based on a policy of legislation for the many, not the few.

What about the rights of the many law-abiding citizens, not of the few in the criminal fraternity? For too long, we have heard about Labour in power, both at Westminster and here at Holyrood, pledging to act for victims and to punish criminals. But talk is cheap. The people of Scotland want actions, not words. Scotland wants a commonsense solution to blindingly obvious problems in sentencing policy. We want commonsense powers to be given to the police to enable them to deliver for the communities that they serve.

Keith Raffan (Liberal Democrat, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Will Mrs McIntosh give way?

Lyndsay McIntosh (Conservative, Central Scotland)

I am terribly sorry, I would normally, but I am right up against the time.

Scotland wants a commonsense, coherent drug action plan, not the lengthy consultation exercise that the Executive has conducted. In short, Scotland wants, needs and deserves a commonsense revolution in our criminal justice and sentencing policies.

Fiona McLeod (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

Will Mrs McIntosh give way?

Lyndsay McIntosh (Conservative, Central Scotland)

I really do not have time. I have only three minutes now.

Let me give one example of those who would welcome the day that reform is delivered on their behalf. The home of a couple from East Ayrshire was ransacked, resulting in several hundreds of pounds of damage. The lady of the house was terrorised and was held against her will at knife-point by an inmate of Shotts prison, who escaped his prison escort while in transit from Kilmarnock sheriff court.

The Scottish Prison Service advertises itself as an agency of the Scottish Executive justice department. We might think that those in the Prison Service, of all people, would be sensitive to the victims of the offence, particularly when it was their inability to fit a pair of handcuffs that enabled the crime to take place. But no: in its letter of 16 May to the couple's solicitor, the service repudiates the claim for compensation. It wrote that

"the Scottish Prison Service cannot be held responsible for"

the prisoner's actions.

Michael McMahon (Labour, Hamilton North and Bellshill)

Will Mrs McIntosh give way?

Lyndsay McIntosh (Conservative, Central Scotland)

I am really sorry. I took plenty of interventions in the chamber yesterday, but not today.

To add insult to injury, that was justified because

"He was handcuffed to a prison officer who had no reason to suspect that"

the prisoner "would slip the cuffs".

We must structure our criminal justice system so that it delivers for people. To do so, we have to ensure that a whole load of conditions exist, some of which have been mentioned already. Putting the victim first is essential to re-establish public confidence in our police and criminal justice system, and is a fundamental plank of Conservative policy.

As a mother, I would like to address the recent suggestion that the criminal age of responsibility could be raised from eight to 12 years, which is the age of youths who are throwing stones and bricks at the windows and doors of two constituents in Grangemouth. Mrs Rennie and Mr Elliot are prisoners in their own homes because of the antics of young hooligans.

We have commented on the good that can be done by the children's panel system, and I am happy to concede that I am probably the person to whom Cathy Jamieson alluded in her speech. Hearings can be enormously effective, and can help when considering the whole situation.

The police have been very sympathetic, but cannot be there all the time for constituents such as those I mentioned, and there seems to be little that they can do. Does it not mean anything that those people are trapped? I welcome the assurance of the Deputy Minister for Justice that no decision has been made on the matter so far, and that it will be next year before a decision is made. The ECHR can and will have many effects on legislation, but we eventually have to take a principled stance. We have to say that we can go thus far and no further.

From my experience as a justice of the peace, courts take an extremely sensitive approach to dealing with children between the ages of eight and 12, and it is only right and proper—and demonstrates a commonsense ability on the part of the courts—to assess the current situation. However, youngsters may take away a message that their actions are unacceptable, and that what they did constituted an offence. I have a son and a daughter, and I would like them to learn that lesson.

We ask for cross-party support to require the Executive to strengthen legislation in order to tackle the problems in our society, rather than producing bills which dilute powers and advantage criminals. All our postbags support our position, and I hope that the Parliament will accept it—although, having said that, I doubt that it will today.

Water Industry

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

Today I am launching a consultation paper on modernisation and competition in the Scottish water industry. The paper's themes are: ensuring that the water authorities—while remaining in the public sector—are able to respond effectively to the challenges of competition; dealing with increasing competition in the sector; and meeting our objectives on social inclusion, public health and environmental protection.

Competition is already a fact of life for our water authorities. They have to compete for business in a number of areas—although that is confined, so far, to services that are not delivered through their own networks. The Competition Act 1998 extends the possibility of third parties competing to provide services on those networks—whether through common carriage or other arrangements. Competition is, therefore, likely to become an increasing feature of the sector. There are potential benefits, and I welcome that. Where there is competition, customers have choice. Choice encourages innovation, improvements in service and keen prices, all of which mean value for money for customers.

I want to see those benefits for water customers throughout Scotland. That does not mean that there will be unfettered competition without regard to the wider public interest. Our water and sewerage services are too important for that. They have a vital role to play in maintaining public health, protecting the environment and promoting social inclusion. That means that they must be safe, accessible and affordable. Any competition must contribute to that—not undermine it.

The aim is for competitors to offer real choice through greater efficiency and improved services—not through the crude cherry-picking of the most attractive customers by playing the system and adding nothing to it. The challenge for our publicly owned authorities is to continue to improve the quality of the service that is available to current customers. Any shift to different providers would be entirely a matter of customer choice.

Meeting our objectives means that we must put in place a proper statutory framework. At present, Scottish water and sewerage legislation makes no provision for third parties serving customers through access to, or use of, the public networks. That situation needs to be remedied to avoid wholly unregulated competition. The last thing we want is for policy in this crucial area to be determined through the courts. It is imperative that the Scottish Parliament sets the limits. We must set the boundaries and the right framework. That is why the consultation paper proposes a new statutory framework for the Scottish water sector.

The new framework will introduce a licensing regime that requires all operators to meet high standards of technical competence and financial strength. That regime will be an absolute requirement. It will make new entrants to the market liable to criminal prosecution if they supply unwholesome water—as applies to our water authorities at present. The framework will give water authorities clear responsibility for safeguarding continuous service on the public networks and it will clarify that authorities can permit access to the networks. It will also ensure that the authorities' charges for access to the networks are fair and fully reflect the costs to the authorities of maintaining the networks.

To secure this network, the water industry commissioner needs to be given the duty of licensing operators. At the same time, we should enhance the powers of the Scottish Executive as the drinking water quality regulator.

Everyone must recognise that operating water and sewerage systems is a complex technical task. Delivering drinking water that is wholesome and that also meets all our expectations for taste and appearance requires skill and constant vigilance. Meeting the ever higher standards of environmental protection requires massive investment in new treatment works. It is only right that those who want access to the networks must meet the exacting standards that are required of the water authorities day in and day out, or face the consequences. There is no place for cowboys, or for the "here today, gone tomorrow" sort of operator. Anyone wishing to operate services must be able to stay the course.

Affordability of services is also a major issue for the authorities, particularly for vulnerable groups in society. In the longer term, the standards that are set by the water industry commissioner to increase efficiency will work to keep charges as low as possible.

For the time being, the Executive is considering ways of improving on the protection that is already provided to many of the least-well-off consumers. Last week, we began a short exercise to canvass the opinions of experts in the field. We will draw on their advice when we frame our proposals, which will be the subject of consultation later in the year. Our proposals will require legislation by the Scottish Parliament. There will be an announcement on the timing of that legislation in due course, after the consultation exercise.

Our planned legislation will recognise the crucial role of the Scottish water authorities in delivering vital services. It will also acknowledge their continuing place in the public sector. The Executive remains committed to the authorities as publicly owned bodies. Nothing in our proposals alters the fact that the authorities are accountable to ministers and, through ministers, to Parliament. They are responsible for the public infrastructure of water and sewerage in Scotland. That fact is fundamental to our policy, but that is not to say that some changes might not be necessary. Competition poses a challenge for incumbent producers and suppliers, which is why it is good for the customer. The water authorities are no different—they must meet their customers' demands as efficiently as possible.

This is undoubtedly a challenge for the authorities. I want them to rise to that challenge and, in doing so, to vindicate the public sector model by competing fairly and successfully with the private sector. While the Executive believes that the authorities are capable of that, if they are to succeed, the Executive, as owner on behalf of the public, will have to reassess some of its controls over them. Therefore, the consultation paper seeks to encourage debate about the ways in which the authorities will need to adapt as competition develops, because they will need to be able to develop innovative approaches.

The consultation paper describes our decision to relax the guidelines that govern joint ventures. Such action is not dependent on legislation and it, therefore, can be implemented independently and quickly, which is important in enabling water authorities to retain their customers where competition exists for waste water services.

A more flexible approach to commercial opportunities is an important element of the authorities' response to competition. However, the key for the water authorities is for them to concentrate on delivering the core services the public expects of them as efficiently as possible. If they do so, their position will be secure and their customers will be well served.

The consultation paper sets out our proposals for ensuring that customers benefit fully from increasing competition in the Scottish water sector. It does so in the context of our commitment to develop a public sector water industry in Scotland that is empowered to deliver for its customers and to develop services that meet the need for clean, safe and affordable water.

I want customer choice and a modern public sector industry, with no compromise on public health, environmental standards or social inclusion. Therefore, we need a framework that delivers those objectives. We must enable the authorities to modernise and we must equip them to deliver for the future. Already, they are implementing a major investment programme that will deliver cleaner beaches and safer water and that will maintain our Victorian infrastructure.

In the consultation paper, we are proposing competition that will work in all our interests. I look forward to receiving comments on our proposals.

David (None, Lothians)

I thank the minister for finishing before the time limit. A large number of members wish to ask questions, so short and snappy exchanges would help.

Richard Lochhead (Scottish National Party, North East Scotland)

I welcome the minister's statement, given the importance of the Competition Act 1998 to the future of the water industry in Scotland. However, I was thoroughly disappointed to read some of the details of the minister's statement in yesterday's press. Perhaps, in future, ministerial statements could be kept for the chamber.

I am also extremely disappointed by the delay in the minister's announcement—we were promised it months ago. The announcement should not have come four months after the 1998 act came into force—it should have come four months before that happened, so that we would not have to play catch-up.

I trust that the minister agrees that the best way forward for the water industry is for the three authorities to become efficient and competitive publicly owned enterprises. That would enable them to fight off competition and to keep down water bills in Scotland. None of us wants any part of Scotland's water industry to fall into private hands.

While the minister says that competition might offer the opportunity to ensure that the public authorities deliver the best possible services to customers in Scotland, we know that there are serious threats to that opportunity. The overwhelming view in Scotland is that our water industry must remain firmly in the public sector, yet competition places a big question mark over the industry's future under the new Labour Government.

I trust that the minister agrees that it would be bad news if privatised water companies were to cherry-pick the biggest industrial customers, leaving the rest of us to pay higher water charges to fill the gap.

I would like straight answers to the following questions. First, does the minister agree that water bills have rocketed because the new Labour-Liberal coalition that runs the Government has refused to contribute one penny towards the massive investment programme that is currently under way in the industry? We face the danger that private companies will feel able to compete against the water authorities in Scotland, enforce the act and poach the big commercial customers. That would leave us with a smaller customer base, from which authorities would have to raise their income.

Secondly, in order to avoid such undermining of our publicly held authorities, will the Scottish Executive dip into its pocket—or Gordon Brown's pockets—to finance the measures that the authorities will need to implement to see off the competition? Even better, will the Executive reduce next year's water bills to make the water authorities more competitive?

Finally, it would be appalling if—just as the water companies in England are turning their back on privatisation and becoming publicly owned—ministers here were prepared to stand back and allow our industry to be privatised via the back door.

Des McNulty (Labour, Clydebank and Milngavie)

On a point of order.

David (None, Lothians)

I know the point of order that Des McNulty wants to raise. I always allow the Opposition spokesman a reasonable right of reply, but short and snappy exchanges should follow.

Des McNulty (Labour, Clydebank and Milngavie)

Is it in order for members to make a speech before they ask three questions?

David (None, Lothians)

As I said, Opposition spokesmen are always given some latitude.

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

Although Richard Lochhead's welcome for my statement was a bit grudging and he does not appear to have read some of the detail, I appreciate it.

I want to make absolutely clear that there has been no delay in bringing this statement before Parliament. We made a commitment to make a statement to Parliament and I am honouring that commitment today. This is the right time—

Richard Lochhead (Scottish National Party, North East Scotland)

On a point of order. The details of the statement appeared in five newspapers yesterday. Presiding Officer, can you clarify whether that is in order for ministerial statements?

David (None, Lothians)

That is not a point of order. Carry on, minister.

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

I reassure the member that no details of my ministerial statement appeared in the newspapers. After this week's Cabinet meeting, there was a press briefing on the issues that were discussed—that happens every week. That is not the same as a briefing on the content of my statement.

There has been no delay in making the statement. This is the right time for us to act. The consultation period over the summer will enable consumers, those who work in the industry and those who have knowledge of it to engage in the discussion.

The Competition Act 1998, which the SNP supported at Westminster, is a reality. Richard Lochhead asked three questions, but two of them were the same. There is already competition in the water industry—some major customers are putting their contracts out to tender and our water authorities need to be able to respond. I am proposing that the Scottish Executive's control be loosened to enable the water authorities to do that, so that they can keep those customers. The key issue is to set in place a new legislative framework that will avoid the cherry-picking to which Richard Lochhead refers. To do that, we need a regulatory framework. If we do not have one, the water industry will be wide open and the issue will be dealt with in the courts. That is why we need to address the matter.

Richard Lochhead's suggestion that the Executive has not invested in the Scottish water industry is simply not true. I have made clear on a number of occasions that, through the external finance limits, each of the Scottish water authorities receives direct financial support from the Executive. That support was proportionately greater in the north of Scotland, where we knew there was a more significant investment challenge. I am happy to have the opportunity to lay to rest again the myth that Richard Lochhead propagates.

The aim of the consultation paper is to boost our Scottish water industry and to ensure that we have the appropriate regulatory framework that will ensure that the industry is not undermined. I ask Richard Lochhead to read the detail of the paper and to engage with the questions that we are asking about how to deliver a secure, safe regulatory framework. I invite all colleagues in the chamber to do likewise.

David (None, Lothians)

Now even more members want to ask questions.

Murray Tosh (Conservative, South of Scotland)

Having raised the matter on a number of occasions, I welcome the fact that the minister has made a statement on it today. I welcome, in particular, her concern that the water provided by all operators should be of the same quality as that which the existing water boards are expected to provide to customers.

I have two questions. The first relates to cherry-picking. The minister was firm about that, but it is not clear from her statement or from the consultation paper how cherry-picking can be avoided in practice. I suspect that the detail might lie somewhere in what she said about continuous supply, but it would be helpful if that could be made clearer and more specific.

My second point relates to what the minister said about joint ventures and greater commercial freedoms. I have looked carefully at paragraphs H8 and J4 of the consultation document—which address joint ventures and invite consultation on that issue—but there does not appear to be a clear or detailed proposal from the Executive. It would help the chamber to determine whether it is possible to generate significant and adequate additional investment if the Executive divulged its thinking on the nature of the commercial freedoms that it proposes to confer on the water authorities.

I hope that that was reasonably short and snappy.

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

I shall try to give relatively short and snappy answers.

On cherry-picking, we will require average water charges to be in place and to be delivered through the mechanisms that we have identified in the paper, via a combination of the water industry commissioner and the water authorities identifying access charges. Having an average water charge means that in rural areas and throughout the wide swathes that are covered by water authorities, the cheapest customers cannot be picked off and dealt with. That is the mechanism that will address the issue.

Secondly, on joint ventures, the issue is not about legislation, but about regulations. At the moment, the water authorities are in a tied straitjacket with regard to entering into joint ventures. I propose to loosen that straitjacket, which will put less of a burden on the authorities in terms of consultation and give them more freedom within the public sector framework. The paper identifies why we intend to do that.

Nora Radcliffe (Liberal Democrat, Gordon)

The consultation paper is timely and welcome, because it is essential that we get the matter of water services right. I hope that we get a wide range of responses that will feed into getting it right. We need a regulatory framework that maintains the viability of public water authorities and protects rural interests.

Will the minister consider the overall structure of the water industry in Scotland? Does she see the water regulator as the champion of the consumer? When will we see evidence of the commissioner acting in that capacity?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

I welcome the comments on the need for the widest possible consultation. The issue affects every one of us and our constituents. I have considered the overall structure of the water industry in great depth, particularly in the light of the challenge of investment in the industry, which I know is of concern to members.

At the moment, the top challenge for our water industry and water authorities is to make sure that the investment programmes that they have to deliver—which amount to £1.8 billion—are delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible. That point was picked up by both Opposition parties' spokespeople and we are all agreed on it. My view is that playing around with the overall structure of the three water authorities would be a diversion. However, in the medium to long term we need to think about that structure and I am keenly interested in the development of the mutualisation process that is being considered in England and Wales. Although I do not think that now is the time to address that issue—we need to get the framework in place to regulate competition and to defend interests in water safety and public health—it is a longer-term issue to reflect on.

The water industry commissioner has already published for consultation a set of tougher standards for the water authorities to meet on the timing of the delivery of their services and the compensation that might be given to people if they experience a failure in service delivery. The requirements that it is proposed the water authorities should meet are tough and crunching. If members wish to support them or suggest alternative mechanisms, now is the time to give feedback to the commissioner. However, his overall approach of trying to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the industry is about value for money for customers. That is the biggest contribution that the water industry commissioner has made.

John McAllion (Labour, Dundee East)

Will the minister explain whether the new regulatory framework would specifically prevent privatised companies from cherry-picking lucrative commercial contracts, such as the multi-million pound contract to supply water to Grangemouth, which—if lost—would fatally undermine the financial viability of East of Scotland Water Authority?

As Yorkshire Water—which ripped off taxpayers at the time of privatisation—is now seeking to offload massive debts on to the backs of water consumers through mutualisation, we should not be paving the way for such people to come in, but seeking to keep those privatised sharks out of Scottish water altogether.

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

The critical challenge that is faced by the water authorities is not the result of the access issues that were opened up by the Competition Act 1998. The challenge is that, for a number of major contracts, there is already scope for customers to have water supplied from outwith Scotland's water industry.

My proposals, on the regulatory side, for joint ventures are designed to give our water authorities the opportunity to compete with the big water authorities that are being invited to tender for contracts by organisations such as BP Amoco.

There are two issues to reiterate. First, there is existing competition, which is why I wish to offer the authorities, in a modernised, public sector framework, the challenge to compete, so that they do not automatically lose out when contracts are being awarded.

Secondly, there is the longer-term issue of delivering a viable framework, set by the Parliament, that will deal with issues about fair competition and access charges, so that the investment that we are making through the three water authorities is not given away. If anyone wants access to our water industry, they will have to pay a fair price. The mechanism that I suggest we set up, through the regulatory framework, would let us deliver that. It would let us set the ground rules, rather than those rules being decided by the courts. We need the legislation—decided accountably and transparently by Parliament—in place, so that people can see what we are trying to deliver.

Colin Campbell (Scottish National Party, West of Scotland)

First, people have been hit by enormously increased water charges this year. They already have bills to pay. Does the minister think that it was really good enough to canvass expert opinion on affordability last week, when water charges have increased 300 per cent since Labour was elected in 1997? Is not that too little, too late?

Secondly, how can giving authorities power to borrow money, which will be paid back by the customers, be described as a Government investment in water?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

If we have a public sector water industry, we need to be able to raise investment. That is done on the public sector balance sheet. The point that I made to Richard Lochhead when he raised that matter in the chamber was that if investment is not raised through increases in charges or customers' payments, it comes back to the Scottish balance sheet. It then has to be paid for through increased taxes. If the Scottish National Party is seriously suggesting that £1.8 billion should be paid for by the public purse through raised taxes, it can do that, but it should be honest about it.

The point of borrowing money is that we need to modernise the system if we are to have a Scottish public water authority. The paper opens the debate on how we do that. It is not a debate that we should duck—we need to engage in it.

On Colin Campbell's first point about increased water charges, everybody in the chamber acknowledges the need for massive investment to meet European requirements, the need to deliver safe water across Scotland and the need to ensure that what we do is carried out in the most efficient way possible. Those are the challenges and we all accept that. The member can haggle about how we deliver it, but if his alternative solution is funding through the public purse, that would mean more taxes. He should be honest about that.

Robin Harper (Green, Lothians)

John McAllion's question is the most important that has been asked in the debate. However, on water quality, is it still the Executive's intention to add fluoride to Scotland's water?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

That issue is not covered in today's paper, which is about modernising the water sector. Robin Harper's question is for another day.

Des McNulty (Labour, Clydebank and Milngavie)

I agree with the minister's point that there is no place for cowboy operators of the "here today, gone tomorrow" variety. In that context, will the minister tell me how the water industry commissioner will ensure that any new entrants pay their fair share towards the cost of public water networks?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

Two points are crucial to that. The first is that we must identify a licence system so that every potential competitor is assessed on their capability to deliver a wholesome, safe, secure water service. That means that we must make requirements about their financial status. The last thing we want is some fly-by-night operator that does not have financial security. The point about liability is critical. To ensure that there is a level playing field, our current water authorities are liable if they provide unhealthy water services. Any new competitor would have to operate under the same regime.

The second critical point is financial viability. Those who know about opencast mining will know that any company that is obliged to reinstate land after mining an area is required to submit a bond. Our consultation document asks for views on how to secure that, but there must be financial viability in the long term, not just in the short term. We must regulate the process and, in the customers' interests, we must require that the water industry commissioner is the person who hands out licences. That process should be subject to public scrutiny and access charges should be fair and should reflect the investment that the water authorities have made. We must deliver the whole package, and the document sets out the framework for that in detail.

David Mundell (Conservative, South of Scotland)

The minister is familiar with the difficulties that Moffat residents have suffered with their water supply. In the interests of snappiness, I shall not go over them. Although it might have been superficially attractive for residents to change to a competitor company, the water that they received would have been the same. What assurance can the minister give that the consumer will have the key role in determining whether the quality of the water supply is adequate?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

The water industry commissioner has set up three consultative committees that will give him advice and feedback. I met members of those committees when the Parliament met in Glasgow a few weeks ago. The questions they asked persuaded me that they are completely engaged in the challenges of representing consumer interests and feeding that directly to the water industry commissioner.

Wholesome water is not the same as water that is safe, because taste is important. David Mundell and other members have raised questions not only about safety, but about people's perceptions of the quality of their water. The system that we have set up with the water industry commissioner and his advisory committees will enable those points of view to be put directly into the framework that we are trying to develop.

Richard Simpson (Labour, Ochil)

I welcome the statement, the commitment to keeping water in the public sector, the licensing regimes and the access charges. At the moment, the capital requirements are being met mainly though public-private partnerships, capital from the Government or from an income stream. Will the consultation document open up the water boards, not just in the joint venture system, but generally, so that they can obtain capital in different or innovative ways?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

I have included in the consultation paper a question that invites views on how to change the process and what opportunities can be plugged in. I have spoken to the water authorities about the broad content of the paper. During the past few months they have raised, in discussion, points about the need for greater flexibility. That is something that I am prepared to consider. However, we must modernise the public sector in a way that retains accountability. That is a critical issue on which I am determined to deliver.

Euan Robson (Liberal Democrat, Roxburgh and Berwickshire)

If the water industry commissioner is now to deal with licensing, is not it time to remove his role as the consumers' representative and set up an independent consumers' body, as in the energy industry and other industries?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

The paper explores the complex relationships that are needed to manage the new regulatory framework. Euan Robson should study the details of how we propose to allocate the different responsibilities. He is right to say that the water industry commissioner must act in the interests of the consumer. His role is central in licensing and in considering the way forward for the industry. He is in a crucial position to deliver for the consumer—that is why his role is important. The advisory groups that he has set up to give him feedback on consumer interests will allow us to manage that tension. Parliament is a major stakeholder in Scottish water and the public sector authorities, and we can influence the industry through the framework that we set as a Parliament.

Gil Paterson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

The law of the jungle in the water industry usually means that there is cherry-picking of large companies. I heard what Sarah Boyack said and she has heard the concerns about cherry-picking that have been expressed by all parties. If cherry-picking takes place, can the minister give a cast-iron guarantee that small companies and domestic users will not have to pick up the tab? Will the minister take measures to ensure that bills remain the same and that they are not excessively high in the domestic sector?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Edinburgh Central)

We are bringing forward proposals for a regulatory framework. The Competition Act 1998 opened up the possibility of access to the water network. In England and Wales they have had a different history. There are already privatised water companies and there are licensing arrangements.

In Scotland, we have no such framework and no protection for consumers. If the matter is dealt with through the courts, Parliament is unable to take action on the points that I raised about cherry-picking, setting of access charges and setting of high environmental and health standards, because we have no legislation that allows it to do so. We need the legislation, such as that which I am putting out for consultation, to avoid the problems that Gil Paterson has raised. We need a robust system. There must be a proper framework and that needs the democratic legitimacy of Parliament. The challenge for us all is to decide on the detail of the bill, as it will be when it comes before Parliament.

David (None, Lothians)

I apologise to the four members who I have not been able to call, but we are out of time. As the minister said, we will come back to this subject in the future.

Business Motion

David (None, Lothians)

The next item of business is consideration of business motion S1M-1006, in the name of Mr Tom McCabe, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, which sets out the business programme. I call Iain Smith to move the motion.

Motion moved,

That the Parliament agrees the following programme of business— Wednesday 21 June 2000

2.30 pm Time for Reflection followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions followed by Stage 3 Debate on the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Bill

5.00 pm Decision Time followed by Members' Business - debate on the subject of S1M-882 Roseanna Cunningham: Edinburgh Folk Festival Thursday 22 June 2000

9.30 am Non-Executive Business - Scottish National Party followed by Business Motion followed by Executive Motion on Care Standards Bill - UK Legislation followed by Members' Business - debate on the subject of S1M-913 David McLetchie: Milestone House Hospice

2.30 pm Question Time

3.10 pm First Minister's Question Time followed by Stage 1 Debate on the Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill followed by Financial Resolution in respect of the Bail, Judicial Appointments etc (Scotland) Bill followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.30 pm Decision Time Wednesday 28 June 2000

2.30 pm Time for Reflection followed by Committee Business - Finance Committee Debate followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions

5.00 pm Decision Time followed by Members' Business Thursday 29 June 2000

9.30 am Ministerial Statement followed by Parliamentary Bureau Motions followed by Stage 3 Debate on the Education and Training (Scotland) Bill followed by Business Motion

2.30 pm Question Time

3.10 pm First Minister's Question Time

3.30 pm Executive Debate on Forward Strategy for Scottish Agriculture

5.00 pm Decision Time followed by Members' Business— [Iain Smith.]

David (None, Lothians)

Donald Gorrie will speak against the motion.

Donald Gorrie (Liberal Democrat, Central Scotland)

I want to raise with the minister the matter of the timetable for debate of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Bill on the afternoon of Wednesday 21 June.

The experience of the stage 3 debate on the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill showed that the timetable adopted for that day was totally inadequate. I am concerned that we are again limited to a debate from 2.30 pm to 5 pm. It is important that section 28 is seen to be debated for a satisfactory length of time. Will the minister give an assurance that there will be hours and not merely minutes to debate section 28? Secondly, will the minister give an assurance that more time will be allowed if consideration of the other amendments demands that?

David (None, Lothians)

Before the minister replies, I say to Mr Gorrie that his point about the inadequacy of the timetable for the stage 3 debate on the Standards in Scotland's School's etc Bill has been unanimously accepted by the Parliamentary Bureau. The timetable was unsatisfactory.

Iain Smith (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

There will be discussions between the party business managers on the timetabling of the Ethical Standards in Public Life etc (Scotland) Bill. Because standing orders say that decision time is at 5 o'clock, that is the time that appears in the business motion.

The Parliamentary Bureau motion following time for reflection next Wednesday will set a timetable. I will be very surprised if it does not set a timetable with a later finishing time. There will be discussions between the business managers to ensure that all aspects of the bill that require full debate are fully debated in the chamber. We accept that the timetable for the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Bill did not quite work last week, but timetabling motions for previous stage 3 debates have worked perfectly satisfactorily. The intention is to obtain a timetabling motion that will allow adequate debate of all the key points at stage 3.

David (None, Lothians)

The question is, that motion S1M-1006 be agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

Question Time — scottish executive

David (None, Lothians)

Before we start question time this afternoon, I want to say several things about the points of order that were raised at the close of the previous three question times.

First, I always carefully read the Official Report on question time to see what lessons we can learn; the record is not simply ignored afterwards.

Secondly, to give an illustration of the problem, members might be interested to know the number of questions that were asked last week. Seventeen members had their questions called, together with supplementaries. In the course of the hour, 19 other supplementaries were called and 36 were not called. I point that out because, each time a member approaches me on this subject, they seem to think that I have selective myopia. That is not true; the fact is that many questions are not called. The shorter and sharper the exchanges, the more members will be called.

Finally, members will remember that, last week, I had to stand and ask a member to sit down. The member explained that it was not her fault; because of the noise, she simply could not hear my two previous invitations to sit down. The less noise we have, the faster we will get on.

Ian Jenkins (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

To ask the Scottish Executive whether it has any plans to develop Holocaust memorial programmes in Scottish schools and communities. (S1O-1936)

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

The answer is yes. A teaching pack is being developed for use in P6 and P7 in primary schools. We are also discussing what support might be offered to the City of Edinburgh Council, which will be hosting the Anne Frank exhibition in January 2000.

Ian Jenkins (Liberal Democrat, Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale)

I welcome the minister's answer, particularly the information about the packs. I understand that there might also be an exhibition at Kelvingrove.

The minister will agree that, although this episode in our history shows mankind at its most inhumane, it gave rise to deeds of courage and fortitude that brought families to Scotland. Will the minister consider creating a national memorial to mark Scotland's remembrance, with the National Archive of Scotland perhaps establishing a programme of education and culture to remind our youngsters to avoid the politics of exclusion, intolerance and hatred?

Peter Peacock (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

Obviously I agree with Mr Jenkins about the sheer horrific nature of the Holocaust and that we need to keep reminding people about that through schools and other available mechanisms. Mr Jenkins will know that plans for a Holocaust memorial day on 21 January 2000 are being led by the Home Office. The Scottish Executive and the Scotland Office are involved in those plans and we are about to involve local authorities. I am happy to feed Mr Jenkins's points into those discussions.

Mary Scanlon (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

To ask the Scottish Executive how the initiative Beyond 2000 will benefit the Ambulance Service. (S1O-1957)

Susan Deacon (Labour, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh)

The Scottish Ambulance Service initiative Beyond 2000 is designed to modernise and therefore improve services for patients. It will review three key operational areas: non-emergency services; operations control rooms; and the emergency service. All those reviews are being taken forward in full consultation with staff, patient representative groups and the wider national health service in Scotland.

Mary Scanlon (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

Does the minister believe that a priority-based dispatch system is the best means of improving response times? Furthermore, does she share concerns that the interrogation in 999 calls might result in less assertive callers being given a lower priority?

Susan Deacon (Labour, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh)

There is a clear recognition of the need to explore fully and effectively a priority-based dispatch system. For that reason, in March, the Executive allocated £100,000 to conduct an evaluation in that area. I am very grateful for the Scottish Parliament Audit Committee's report on the Scottish Ambulance Service, which was published today and will contribute to this discussion. There is a real desire to work to improve the available service; to do that, the area must be fully explored.

George Lyon (Liberal Democrat, Argyll and Bute)

As the National Audit Office report published in 1999 revealed, ambulance response times are a problem in sparsely populated areas such as my constituency of Argyll and Bute, where 10 per cent of ambulances failed to arrive in the target time. What action is being taken to target that low success rate?

Susan Deacon (Labour, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh)

As my previous answer indicated, a range of measures are going forward. We want to build on the Ambulance Service's good record and examine ways in which it can be developed and improved. Those ways will vary in different parts of the country. As we know, rural areas have particular health care delivery needs. That is why the remote and rural resource initiative that was established in Inverness is significant. It provides an opportunity to examine the overall health needs of rural communities and to explore ways of delivering health services that will best meet those needs. All that will contribute to improvements in those areas.

Gil Paterson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

To ask the Scottish Executive what steps are being taken to remunerate adequately voluntary organisations for their expertise and time contributed in respect of the consultation period on rape and domestic violence issues. (S1O-1946)

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

The Scottish Executive seeks to include the views of the voluntary sector wherever possible in its policy-making process. It is for organisations to decide whether and how to respond on any given issue. It would not be feasible or practical to build a scheme of payments into the consultation procedure.

Gil Paterson (Scottish National Party, Central Scotland)

I am sorry to hear that. Will the minister comment on a letter that was sent to the Justice and Home Affairs Committee this week by the Zero Tolerance trust, which reluctantly declined to give evidence? In the past two months, members of the trust have spent six days in this Parliament giving evidence. The trust pays for the associated costs out of its own pocket. The Parliament cannot do without such a group's expertise and knowledge. It would be good if the Executive could come up with some money to help voluntary organisations that come before the Parliament.