Scottish Parliament's Government

Speech by Robert Brown MSP on Wed 5th Sep 2007

I begin by welcoming Shirley-Anne Somerville to the chamber. I wish her well during her time here. I also wish her predecessor well as he brings his undoubted talents to demonstrating SNP coherence and consistency to the governance of Edinburgh.

I was interested in Roseanna Cunningham's statement that all parties are united around increasing the Parliament's powers, presumably within the United Kingdom. When the cabinet secretary replies, will she say whether that policy, which was until recently a Liberal Democrat policy only, is now a policy of the SNP Government?

The debate has been interesting, but its substance has been about not very much. The SNP has been compelled reluctantly to cobble together a Government programme of sorts. It is manifestly an Opposition's programme, not that of a Government-as, indeed, was its manifesto for the recent elections. It is by far the thinnest and most inconsequential legislative programme the Parliament has seen. If we Liberal Democrats had produced it, it would have been described as unambitious, unexciting and unworthy of Scotland's aspirations. As Mike Rumbles clearly demonstrated in considering the programme's details, it also contains substantial practical holes.

Brian Adam (Aberdeen North) (SNP): Will the member give way?

Robert Brown: I am sorry but I cannot give way: I only have four minutes for my reply.

Of course there are nuggets: I welcome the proposed bill to abolish the graduate endowment, the technical legislation in support of the Glasgow 2014 bid and the proposed changes to rape laws, but seven or eight of the proposed bills would have appeared in any legislative programme.

The national health service is by far the most challenging of our great public services, and the previous Executive made considerable progress on putting in resources, shaping and modernising services, and concentrating on key priorities such as long-term conditions, but the proposed patient services bill, on which we have yet to see any detail, looks like a recipe for political meddling, short-termism and lack of direction in the health service.

As a member of the Law Society of Scotland, I welcome whole-heartedly and on behalf of my legal colleagues the proposed legal rights for patients. They will provide the most fertile source of business that I have seen throughout my career. Sick and elderly patients in Scotland should not require to go to the law to access their rights to proper treatment under the national health service. After the Kerr report, there was consensus about the future of the health service but, in essence, it has been dumped. Clinicians throughout the country no longer know where or how they are going.

If Nicola Sturgeon could be so kind as to pay attention to what I am saying, perhaps when she replies to the debate she will indicate what has happened to the long-awaited children's services bill to reform and modernise the children's hearings system, on which the previous Administration consulted.

This is not a Government; it is a campaign, the sole object of which is to secure an independent Scotland. It organises the resources of government to advance that objective-wanted by some, admittedly, but strongly opposed by the majority-by carefully picking disputes with Westminster and placating this and that interest group. Its obsession with presentation makes new Labour look like beginners. If members want proof of that, they should go to the Scottish Executive website. Ministers have spent £100,000 on renaming the Executive as the Scottish Government and on changing all the signs, but on the website it is impossible to identify the locations, addresses or contact details of SNP ministers or departmental civil servants. When one attempts to do so, a banner stating

"the requested page cannot be found"

usually comes up. The Scottish Parliament intranet site includes a connection to the Scottish Government directory, with the following message:

"The previous Government Directory available to us has been replaced by a web based search tool. Please note that this offers limited functionality".

Quite so.

In conclusion, I suggest to the First Minister a phrase that the SNP may recognise. The First Minister is Toom Tabard, an empty vessel-the phrase was used to describe King John Balliol's shadow Government in the days of William Wallace. This Parliament and this country deserve better than that.

To read the debate in full please click on the link below:

Related Link:

Scottish Government's Programme.