Holyrood 2021: Leaders debate pandemic recovery plans

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Lorna Slater, for the Scottish Greens, claimed to have "won" the 4% pay increase offered by the Scottish government to NHS workers (other than doctors), as part of the deal between the SNP and Greens on the 2020-21 budget.

This is not fully supported in published letters.

When the deal was struck earlier this month, Kate Forbes, the SNP's finance secretary, wrote to the Greens saying she would prioritise pay for public sector workers when allocating additional funds that had just been released by the Treasury.

The reply from the Greens recognised the SNP had already gone further on public sector pay than the Treasury, and said its understanding with Ms Forbes was that it would go further still.

But there was no figure put on that, recognising also that is a matter for pay negotiations.

It also said the pay offer should go to public sector workers more widely, dependent on Scottish government funding, but the deal offered last week only covered the NHS.

It was one of the less clear-cut budget achievements by the Greens. In these negotiations, the smaller party is usually pushing the governing party to go further in a direction it would wish to go anyway.

The commitment to increased pay was an agreement with the SNP rather than a compromise.

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Prof John Curtice told the BBC News channel that Brexit was not mentioned during the debate but it had changed the character of support for the parties in Scotland in the past five years.

He said the Conservatives did not not do very well among Remain voters.

However, the SNP is much more popular among Remain voters than Leave supporters, while support for independence is higher among Remain voters than Leavers, Prof Curtice says.

We got a foretaste tonight of the six-week campaign to come and a big reminder of the fault line in Scottish politics - the constitutional question of whether Scotland should be an independent country and whether it should have a referendum in the next parliament.

The first minister confirmed she would like to have that in the first half of the parliament if the pandemic crisis has passed. What the definition of that is we don’t know though.

The Scottish Greens are also happy to have it at some point but are not boxing themselves in on timing. The other parties are opposed, with Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservatives' leader, working hard to be the most oppositional of the opposition leaders.

He said he didn’t want to work with a party like the SNP because it supports independence. For that, the Scottish Labour leader Anar Sarwar told Mr Ross to "grow up", because Mr Sarwar supports a more co-operational politics despite the constitutional divide.

I think Nicola Sturgeon, perhaps unsurprisingly, looks a bit tired – she is the leader of the Scottish government, was on government business today and has been leading the efforts to tackle the pandemic over the last year.

She can still command the details across the range of different policies and she demonstrated that tonight. As the incumbent leader, she is attacked from all sides and that takes some endurance over the course of an hour or so.

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In a noisy exchange, Douglas Ross accused the SNP of failing to fulfil its promise to reform council tax, while Nicola Sturgeon protested (though parts of it were not audible) that it had been frozen while the SNP has been in office and is lower in Scotland. Both were right.

In 2007, the incoming SNP administration said the "hated council tax" would go and be replaced with a local income tax. As a minority administration, it failed to get sufficient support for that.

When it got a majority in 2011, it had gone cold on the idea. Instead, it froze council tax for nine years, then allowed councils to raise it, and then froze it last year and for 2021-22. The SNP leader was arguing that council tax is lower in Scotland. At Band D, the average Scottish bill in 2020-21 is £1,308, in Wales it is £1,667 and in England it is £1,818.

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Polling expert Prof John Curtice tells the BBC News channel that politics is about presenting a "big narrative".

He says he is not sure any of the party leaders painted a clear picture of the kind of country they wanted to create.

Prof Curtice says Boris Johnson won the 2019 general election by constantly reiterating "Get Brexit Done". There was nothing similar here, he says, and there is a danger their policies will "wash over the people of Scotland".

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Pamela Nash, chief executive of Scotland in Union, told the BBC News channel that the vast majority of people think Covid recovery should be the priority in this election - not another independence referendum.

Broadcaster and independence campaigner Lesley Riddoch says the debate did not feel very balanced because it had three questions at the start suggesting it is impossible to move forward with an independence plan while we are in a pandemic.

Polling expert Prof Sir John Curtice said he thought that the leaders on the panel kept coming back to the issue of whether Scotland should be contemplating a referendum no matter what the question was actually about.

"Tonight, it emphasises the way the constitutional question is going to dominate this campaign despite what people like Pamela argue," Prof Curtice says.

He says Tory leader Douglas Ross, who is against an independence referendum, was just as eager to talk about it as Nicola Sturgeon.

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Anas Sarwar says from his own experience as an ethnic minority politician, everyone has a duty to condemn perpetrators of abuse and show solidarity with the victims. That is a "cast-iron commitment from me", he says.

Willie Rennie says it is depressing that we get to such a state in politics that we have to resort to abuse to get points across. Politicians should work together and stand together every single time, he says, and "I can guarantee I will act in the right way".

Douglas Ross says he was doing an interview today when one person walked past saying they wanted to shoot him, and another wanted a socially-distant selfie. That is the nature of Scottish politics – "we are so divided", he says - but adds that everyone can agree they would take urgent action if abuse was highlighted.

Lorna Slater says we need a parliament which "really reflects the people of Scotland", with a proper gender balance and more women, ethnic minorities and trans people. We have “too many old, wealthy, white men making decisions" , she says, and highlights the Scottish Greens' candidate list is 70% women.

Nicola Sturgeon says she will call out abuse "whenever it needs to be called out". Politicians must recognise their responsibilities and not just call it out when it involves another party, she says. None of us are perfect on this, she adds, but says the leaders must "rise to the occasion" and focus on what they can agree on rather than the "legitimate differences" between us.

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In an age of polarised politics, tackling the self-declared climate crisis has been a rare point of unity for MSPs in the parliamentary term which has just ended. The only debate was how quickly we do it.

Scottish Labour wanted it faster than the SNP; the Scottish Greens even speedier. But that doesn’t set anyone apart in an election campaign.

In the leaders debate, though, there was a moment of polarisation between the Tories and the Greens.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross lauded the £16bn North Sea transition deal designed to secure a future for oil and gas workers. “More money for oil and gas?” questioned an indignant Scottish Greens’ co-leader Lorna Slater.

In reality, the transition deal is a lot more nuanced than that and the politicians know it.

The Lib Dems spoke of the importance of a so called "just transition" where communities are not harmed by decarbonisation. That can’t be achieved if the North Sea sector is shut down tomorrow.

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Scottish Greens co-leader Lorna Slater says the climate crisis has to be the number one concern and only her party has the solutions. She says we should not just dabble in climate measures - instead we have to "do everything all at once now". Ms Slater calls for moves to drive carbon emissions down as quickly as we can. She says she wants to invest in renewable energy and in Scotland's homes and public transport.

Douglas Ross of the Scottish Tories says he hopes the Scottish government will work with the UK government on the North Sea transition deal which will see tens of thousands of jobs protected as they move from oil and gas into more renewable energy. Mr Ross cannot say when he thinks North Sea oil and gas production will cease but says the UK is working with the industry.

Scottish Labour's Anas Sarwar says the world will be watching Glasgow in November when the COP26 climate change conference comes to Glasgow. He says we have got to make sure it shows the best of Glasgow and the best of Scotland.

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon says Scotland already leads the world in carbon emission reductions, with some of the most stretching targets anywhere. She says we have to match what we have done in electricity generation with action in other areas such as how we heat our homes. MS Sturgeon says the SNP manifesto will have proposals on that.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie says we need the same national purpose on climate change as we have had on Covid. The pandemic has shown we don't need to use our cars as much, we can do much more remotely, he says. Mr Rennie says it is a travesty that we are about to build a huge wind farm offshore off Fife and Scotland did not get any of the work to build them.

After a downward trend since the 1990s, child poverty in Scotland has been on the rise for the past few years.

Figures released last week revealed that, before Covid, a quarter of all children in Scotland - around 240,000 - were living below the breadline.

Two thirds of them come from families who are in work. The pandemic has likely made that problem worse. In the last year, the number of people claiming Universal Credit in Scotland doubled - suggesting many families are struggling.

Nicola Sturgeon said a rise in poverty is due to an “assault” on welfare by Westminster. She wants to double her party’s flagship top-up Child Payment - raising it to £20 a week for each child under six in families claiming benefits.

However, that payment was only introduced last month. It also still needs to be rolled out for older children by the end of 2022.

Other parties such as the Lib Dems say the benefit should have been introduced much earlier during the SNP’s tenure.

Child poverty rates remain lower in Scotland than in other parts of the UK. But Scotland has set itself tough targets - by 2030, only 10 per cent of children should be in relative poverty. At the moment, the numbers are going in the wrong direction.

Willie Rennie says yes, and the Scottish Liberal Democrats argued for it during the pandemic.

Scottish Conservatives leader Douglas Ross is not convinced of the argument for it.

Lorna Slater says the Scottish Greens are committed to working towards it and will support trials of it in the next parliament.

Anas Sarwar says yes, Scottish Labour supports it and the pandemic was a missed opportunity to trial it.

Nicola Sturgeon says the pandemic has made her more supportive of it, but the reality of not having full control over tax and social security is that it cannot be done fully in Scotland.

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Willie Rennie says the process of independence for Scotland would be “just like Brexit”. Would it? That depends on how it is handled.

The problems with negotiating Brexit were largely tied up with the British government wishing to remove itself from the single market and customs union. It is not clear that Scotland would wish to remove itself from the single market and customs union with the rest of the UK.

If the leadership at Holyrood wishes instead to re-join the European single market, it may have to make a significant break from the UK’s market regulation and rules. Another feature of the Brexit negotiations was that the European Commission fought hard to protect its members' interests, and to send a signal that leaving the EU would come at a cost for others who might choose to do so.

That would be less of a concern for Downing Street in negotiating on Scottish independence. But having lost the battle to persuade Scots to stay in the Union, leaders at Westminster could negotiate hard in the interests of the rest of the UK.

And as the European Commission did, they could press home the negotiating advantages as the larger, more powerful partner in a split. Such "what if?" arguments become highly hypothetical.

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Quote Message: As Glasgow prepares to host the COP26 climate conference, what will you do to ensure Scotland's contribution to reducing the global rate of warming to pre-industrial levels?"

As Glasgow prepares to host the COP26 climate conference, what will you do to ensure Scotland's contribution to reducing the global rate of warming to pre-industrial levels?"

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Anas Sarwar says Scotland needs an NHS restart plan with dedicated cancer centres and investment in mental health services, so they are accessible in GP practices and workplaces. The Scottish Labour leader welcomes the proposed 4% pay rise for NHS staff, and says social care staff should also get a pay rise.

Douglas Ross says although we are getting close to 10,000 lives being lost in Scotland, a figure “which shames us all”, it would have been higher if not for the incredible efforts of NHS staff. The government’s treatment time guarantee has never been met while Nicola Sturgeon has been first minister, he adds.

Nicola Sturgeon says the government has invested three times as much as they committed to in the NHS. The first minister has been working on plans for temporary operating facilities and mobile units to bring down the backlog, with six permanent elective centres “in train”, and three will be operational by the end of May, she adds.

Willie Rennie says the pandemic has knocked the NHS sideways and we need to make sure primary care has proper investment and mental health services are up to scratch so they are not putting pressure on the service. Professionals, not politicians, should be in charge of setting targets for dealing with the backlog of operations, he adds.

Lorna Slater says every party is committed to an investment-led recovery, but the question is what are we investing in? Boris Johnson can find the money to buy nuclear weapons, but not to give nurses a pay rise, she says. Ms Slater is happy to hear there is consensus on a national care service, which will reduce pressure on the NHS.

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Nicola Sturgeon says she wants to use the next five years to try to get back into the EU single market. 'Trying' to do so is a significant qualification.

That would require Scotland to leave the UK, then to have autonomy to negotiate a new relationship with the European Union - either as a full member state or perhaps, like Norway, as part of the European Economic Area.

It's not clear what would be required, as no country has done this before: currently having full alignment with EU market rules, which should make convergence simple and then negotiating re-engagement. It is not clear what terms the EU would place on that.

And one criticism of the plan is that it would put the frontier of the European single market on the border between Scotland and England, which is a more important market for Scottish business than all overseas countries put together.

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It’s a big question, how does the NHS get back on track after the pandemic?

Psychiatrists are warning of a huge mental health crisis in a service already struggling to cope with demand. There are concerns about the impact on cancer services.

All but urgent surgery was postponed in the first wave and there are waits to get key diagnostic tests.

Doctors worry about those who have symptoms but have put off coming forward. For more routine treatments, doctors are being asked to prioritise those most in need, but that inevitably means others will experience long, long waits.

By far the biggest share of the Scottish budget is already being spent on health and Covid will continue to put pressure on the health service in the months to come. So it’s a very difficult question for all parties, how to get more out of the NHS?