Welcome to the CMC Markets webinar with myself, David Madden, on Monday, the 4th of September. We'll just kick off the webinar now. The time is 12.15 as always before we actually progress with the webinar itself. We do have to go through the risk warning slides. I'll just leave the slides on the screen for a number of seconds for you to have a read through. It essentially states that this is a discussion about what's going on in the financial markets, but nothing we say should be construed as actual investment advice or trading advice. So, as always, we'll just leave the risk warning slides on the screen. You just have a read through them and we'll be kicking off the webinar properly in one minute's time. And now that we've gotten the actual risk warning out of the way, we can now proceed with the actual webinar. So, looking at the equity markets and the big news in the financial markets over the weekend was the news that North Korea is testing another nuclear missile. This is obviously spooked financial markets and we've seen a reasonably big sell-off, a reasonable sell-off in European equity markets. It hasn't been the most serious sell-off we've seen in recent weeks whenever there's been heightened tensions surrounding North Korea. But nonetheless, traders are still on the fearful side of things. South Korea feel, we could speak North Korea are actually preparing more missiles so traders are going to remain on edge. Obviously, the stand-off has been going on for some weeks now but every time we've seen tensions ratchet up to a new level the classic knee-jerk reaction has been a risk-off strategy. We've seen money pour out of equity markets and pour into the classic safe havens such as gold. On top of that, we've also seen money go into the Swiss franc and other classic safe havens play. So the big hit of news over the past 24 hours a hour, 48 hours has really been the sell-off in relation to what's going on in North Korea. Today is Labor Day in the United States of America. So even though the indices, the actual indices are available for trading the cash equity market in the United States is closed. So what we could see is any negotiating movements in the US index futures it may not be a true reflection of what's going on in the actual market seeing as the underlying stock market in the United States is closed for US Labor Day. As always, we have a quick run-through of looking ahead to what we can expect in terms of big economic and corporate announcements over the next few trading days then we'll go through the major markets and then we'll wrap it up with any kind of questions you have at the end of the webinar. So taking a look at the week ahead this can be found by going on to the news and analysis section of our website under news and analysis from there you then click on the topic third option down weekly outlook and then the weekly outlook click on it here gives a breakdown of the major both economic central bank and corporate stories which are in play over the next few days. So taking a look here, we can see here that we have a number of updates from a number of central banks, the European Central Bank of Thursday the Reserve Bank of Australia and also the Bank of Canada rate decision. The ECB is probably going to be the biggest one to watch out for in this part of the world. Traders are already speculating that Mario Draghi is going to voice his concerns about the strength of the euro. Obviously the very loose monetary policy at the European Central Bank have had in place for the last number of years is showing signs has been showing signs of it working. You have seen a decline in unemployment, a lot of the broad economic indicators such as services, manufacturing, construction, they've all been on the rise but what happens when the region picks up trainers they want to buy your currency because your region is growing then your currency becomes a bit too strong or relatively strong to other currencies, you can't have a negative impact. Mr Draghi on Thursday's meeting is tipped to talk about how he is how the strength of the euro is actually acting as a bit of a curtail to the euro zone recovery. Also what we have Tuesday, a rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia with a rate decision no change is expected on that regard in relation to what's going on in the Australian dollar. The Australian dollar has been quite strong. It's rebound in commodity prices. Also what we are probably seeing is that we have seen a broadly speaking decline in the US dollar in the last few months so that's also propping up the Australian dollar. Speaking of commodity currencies we have a rate decision from the Reserve Bank of Canada on Wednesday. We're not expecting any rate rise out of Canada but seeing as we had a rate hike from Canada only last month from the Bank of Canada we're not really expecting anyone on Wednesday coming up but also if you do trade the dollar only, the dollar card it's obviously something to keep an eye out for. We do have some data coming out from China on Friday bearing in mind we had some good manufacturing numbers coming out of China above the private survey and also the official survey were quite strong and now we're looking towards the service sector and Beijing are making a concerted effort to move away from kind of a heavy industry economy more towards a service based economy. So keep an eye out for those who are from China which will be out in the early hours of Friday morning. Taking a look at the corporate front we have a few companies with 40 numbers out as always but to be perfectly honest nothing overly popular. Taking a look to tomorrow, Hewlett Packard Enterprises had the third quarter numbers out. Here in the UK, Red Row won the home builders have their full numbers out. Sticking with the home builders, we have Barrow Development and full numbers on Wednesday. Sticking again with the home builders, the homeless homes have their half-yearly figures out on Thursday. That's probably the kind of major companies in terms of our kind of popularity with our clients here to keep an eye out for. So I'm now going to run through some of the major markets which clients trade and I will have discussion in relation to the popular markets and then if there's any markets that I haven't covered and you would like me to have a chat about feel free to stick that in the actual comment box itself. So as I mentioned, I sell off in European equity markets this morning. Just taking a look now at the FTSE 100, the UK 100. What we can see here is that it's been broadly been pushing lower over the last number of months and this region here just south of 7,300, 7,288 is key support, major support on the FTSE 100. So on one hand it's been finding it very difficult to move south of that price but at the same time it hasn't really made any major gains to the upside. It's broadly speaking negative but it's more of a sideways negative than an outright negative. You'll see what I mean when I bring up the DAX in a second. That's very clear and concise downward trend where this is more range bound. So move to the upside. If you do see a push higher in the FTSE 100, the first level, the resistance to keep an eye out for from Friday will be 7,461. If you do see a move beyond that, the next level some traders may be looking out for could be the old support new resistance at 7,481. This region here. And if we were to take out the high in August of 7,552, that would be quite a bullish indicator and that would be a sign that we're going to have broken out of the range bound area that we've been in for the last number of months and that would be a sign that we're going to potentially move on to the June highs and potentially set on record highs. But what we could see is we've seen a lot of range bound activity on the FTSE 100 in recent months. So it's possibly more likely we're just going to stay in the same range area here. The market may find it difficult to go north of 7,500 and to the downside if you do see any kind of moves lower which you have seen moves lower in the last few months the support at 7,350 will be the first level to watch out for and then south of that the support, the key support at 7,288. As you can see here, this line here has been a major support region for the FTSE 100. So we could actually see fresh buyers come into the mix and you see the market heading down to that level again. But also a key support if and when it finally actually is broken, that's when we could see a wave of selling potentially. So we're turning our attention now to the Jura market and you'll see what it means about how the FTSE is relatively range bound whereas the Eurozone markets such as the DAX are very clear and obvious downward trend. So this is the all-time high that was created here in June and as you can see we've been creating it very clear and obvious downward trend, classic downward trend lower low, lower high, lower low, lower high lower low, lower high, lower low and now we're seeing another lower high. So while we remain south of this price action here 12,343 which would be the high from August the outlook for the DAX is going to remain negative. So but if you do take out that level we could then we could see some addition by moving because that would be taking out a previous lower high and the next level to watch out for north of that will be the 100 day moving average which previously acted as support and it's now potentially may act as resistance that comes into play at 12,445 and then looking north of that we'd be looking up towards 12,576 should we continue to press higher. But as I mentioned we're in a very clear downward trend we've already tested the two-day moving average this morning the two-day moving average is currently just north of 12,041 so should we trade below the two-day moving average which we've done previously only last week on Tuesday we could be seeing a move down towards retesting of that level that low of 11,867 as you can see we've been clearly printing new lows but taking out previous lows and that is a fairly obvious sign that we're in a downward trend on the Germany 30 on the DAX should we take out 11,867 traders will then be looking towards 11,800 region or just shy of 11,700 at 11,692 as I mentioned at the very beginning of the webinar the cash markets the individual equities for the American Stock Exchange are not traded today but the futures market is open on the index itself and because of that you can actually trade the Dow Jones and the S&P 500 even though the actual underlying equity markets are shut the US equity markets have been in a better shape than what's going on in Europe particularly the euros of equity markets have been stuck in a negative move for the last few months so when we did have uncertainties around in North Korea we certainly did have a large sell off in the Dow Jones but as you can see here the market has been pushing higher for the last couple of weeks or just over two weeks the trend is going to back up to the upside and the momentum is clearly declining so that can be seen that whatever selling pressure that has been going on is waning a bit so the bearers are running out of steam as the equity market is actually pushing higher so let us to watch out for to the upside on the Dow Jones will be 12,000 sorry 22,087 and then north of that we'll be looking towards 22,200 so on and so forth should we see any moves to the downside in the Dow Jones areas of potential support may come into play at 21,816 and then this region here where the 50 day moving average is 21,738 down to around 21,700 notice how just south of the 50 day moving average on two occasions the market try to just south of it and then push back above it again so that's why I mentioned that's why I mentioned the market hasn't exactly as it actually receives support from precisely the 50 day moving average just been a bit below it so the region between 21,738 down to around 21,700 that region may act to support should we see a sell off in the Dow futures it's a similar picture for the S&P 500, take a look at that where the market has been moving higher for the last maybe say two weeks or two and a half weeks and we've actually swung to positive territory positive momentum in the S&P 500 so while there was intense selling pressure we did see the market push lower but as we saw a turnaround in the equity market on the S&P 500 we did see confirmed by the decline in negative momentum and now it's swung to positive momentum and our positive momentum is actually increasing granted we have pulled back a small bit here from Friday's session but by and large it is looking a bit more positive than what we've seen here in Europe so let us watch out for to the upside the S&P 500 will be 2,480 and then 2,490 and 2,500 then if you do see any pullbacks we could see support coming to play in around the 50-day moving average at 2,453 or down to around 2,450 itself south of that this region of 2,442 turning our attention now to gold as I think the opposite move in comparison with equity markets the classic risk on trade has been to pour cash into the classic safe haven trade such as gold whereas equity markets have been under pressure and you have markets like Germany printing multi-month lows last week on the upside side of the story you've gold printing fresh highs here this morning traded the high of gold this morning took off the high in November in case you're wondering what date that was that was the night of the US presidential election when Trump was elected so we've created a new multi-month high for the price of gold as you can see it's an clearly clear and obvious upward trend and what we're seeing down here is also an increase in positive momentum so that that geology momentum is clearly with the buyers if you continue to move on higher the next region we could be watching out for on the price of gold potentially is 1358 which as you can see here looking at the back of late our last quarter a second last quarter of 2016 some resistance coming to play just shy of 1360 in around the 1358 region moves lower in gold could find support in 1326 as I mentioned it's any markets that you would like me to cover and just please put it in the box and I'll happily go through those details sticking with the commodities theme let's turn our attention now to the oil markets looking now at oil what we've seen here on the Brent crude contract the rebound that we saw since June has kind of run out of steam and it's been very much range brown for all of you speaking just shy of $54 down to around $50 a barrel this is the price actually what I've been talking about on Brent for the last number of weeks very much range bound it can't seem to make it's mined up either way and obviously the situation with the tropical storm Harvey has obviously seen a brought some new kind of issues to the oil market into the mix looking here we can just about see that the oil market has been supported by the currently moving average of $52.21 should remain north of that we could see resistance coming to play $53 a barrel and then should we move north of $53 the level to watch out for to the upside would then be the August high over $53.83 as you can see here the price is trading in a relatively low range there it's still a negative momentum the momentum is dissipating so it could suggest that whatever the selling pressure is out there is declining but at the same time we haven't seen oil in positive momentum for some time should we move south of the trading moving average which is $50.21 the next potential level support would be this price here which just shy just below $51 a barrel $50.63 which kind of almost coincides with above the 50 day moving average and also the 100 day moving average in this price region here WTI actually has been a bit of a different story but a divergence between the two the long and short of it is that when you have refineries in the United States it was taking crude oil and refinery to very different petroleum related products and when those refineries are out of commission and are not in use due to the flooding on the back of a tropical storm and input into those refineries has been a decline because of our decommission and that's why we're seeing some weakness in the price of oil recently and that's also been a divergence between WTI and Brent on top of that so similar situation the charts for the two energy markets are fairly similar but obviously the tropical storm has brought things into a bit of a mix notice how the market has been broadly moving lower throughout the month of August tying in with the wider 2017 2017 theme of a decline in the oil market and notice how the 50 day moving average acted as support here but then the market couldn't sustain it and as soon as it moved south of it it then became resistance but the push higher from Friday to Friday it's still a negative momentum but negative momentum is in decline so it could be a sign that we're potentially looking to turn positive in terms of momentum on the price of WTI but realistically it's also been fairly range bound over the last number of weeks so if you do see the price of oil lift higher the next potential resistance level to watch out for is going to be this price here at $48.23 then of course beyond that the 30 day moving average will be an important level to keep out for which comes into play at $49.31 and then we'll be looking towards the highest of August and the highest of July at $50.27 it moves lower in the price of WTI we're back towards $45.24 and then south of that we've been looking towards $44.43 and $56 on the price of oil looking now to Eurodollar as I mentioned Mario Draghi is due to speak on Thursday and Mr Draghi is tipped or is believed to anyways so talking about the strength of the Euro we've just gone the great time by Mr Draghi just after the expected non-farm perils come out on the Friday the European Central Bank stated that they won't be looking to address or look to have a plan to taper the European Central Bank's bond buying scheme on to at least December so that was their way of saying that right guys we hear your concerns about and you've heard that respect when we're going to trim the bond buying scheme but guys we're not in a position to do anything on to at least December so that's the ECB's way of telling us that it's on the radar but we're not really in a position to do it yet but we have acknowledged because clearly there's been so much pressure from the financial markets that when the ECB gonna at least announce Taper or talk about tapering because remember when the ECB's bond buying scheme was introduced in the first place it was talked about confirmed and months before it was actually introduced so the ECB ideally would like to keep the currency as long as possible it isn't their interest to keep the currency weak because that assists the recovery but looking here at the chart it's in a very clear obvious push higher it's in pushing higher for several months now but we have seen a bit of a wobble here interesting enough the market push well above the 120 level nearly last Tuesday but ever since then had a quick fairly quick sell off and hasn't really managed to get north of that they get back up to it so you'd almost want to see the market move the Eurodollar move north of the 120 region again before we can actually be more confident that the wider bullish trend is in play notice how you have a relatively small range in around here could point towards some indecision we have seen that we did see a decline in positive momentum and slip into negative momentum which is still on play so look out for if you're looking to go long just bearing in mind that the higher the market moves up in the first place the more confidence you can be of a positive move so we are seeing some indecision so should we break north of 120 then potentially we may see further gains extended from there to the downside if we do see this low taking out here which is in 1823 that could be a sign that we've got more ground to lose south of 1823 traders are then looking towards this the low here from the previous Friday at 1773 and then we could see it moves back towards 1780 in this price in this region here looking at our cable so by a large cable I had a pretty poor August the very beginning of August is going to set the tone for the month but we have seen the price of cable turn around as you can see here as the market was pushing lower and we saw a fairly obvious increase in negative momentum but this is why I often let you talk about momentum in webinars because you want to see that the momentum and the price are pointing in the same direction so as the price was pushing lower and lower and lower you could see negative momentum was picking up but then in around here you can see the negative momentum is tapering off around the same time you do want to see those two moving in the same direction since last week since last Wednesday we have seen, sorry Wednesday before that we have seen about 10 days ago a turn around in cable that's broadly been pushing higher and that's mimicked here by the decline in negative momentum and the swing in the positive momentum and we're actually increasing positive momentum again but the previous support for the 50 day moving average is now acting out of resistance so that level will need to be cleared before we can come more confident that the upward move we're seeing here is part of the wider bullish move and not just a bounce back for this set off before we actually move south again so we would want to take off this price here which comes into play not too far away from just in around the 129 129.60, 129.70 region sure we move north of that and then beyond that 139 up towards 131 131.64 any moves lower in cable may find support from the 100 day moving average 129.15 and then south of that this low here from Thursday at 128.53 if we can start to take our previous lows that could be a sign that we're going to retest the low of August 127.77 and then south of that we'll be looking back towards 127.16 looking at Euro starting, the Euro's had quite a good run recently it's been a fairly clear and concise upward trend versus the pound over the last number of months much to the upside but as you can see here the market has turned around somewhat giving back some of the gains that it has made also mimic for the fact that we have seen a swing to negative momentum and there was still clearly a negative momentum on the Euro starting but similar to the Euro dollar you would want to see the market taking out with this previous high here in 47.92 kind of 40 region before you can become more confident that this negative move here is just a pullback and a wider positive move and then of course should we take out that should we take out this price here in around the 90 to 40 would then be looking up towards the recent high just north of 93 itself and then onto 94 during the price targets if we take out this low here at 91.48 would then be looking back towards 90.88 and then 90 itself in terms of levels to watch out for to the downside on Euro starting so dollar yen has been very much in a fairly obvious downward trend over the last number of months we did see a creation of a new multi month low only last Tuesday we are seeing some signs that the move higher here in the dollar verse at the end is slightly running out of steam if you look here at the positive momentum notice the positive momentum today has dipped a bit in comparison with last Friday so it could be a sign that whenever an upward move is running out of steam and if the market is going to turn over on itself we will be looking towards the downside target potentially the old support in the middle of August at 108.63 and then south of that the August low of 108.26 and then south of that again looking towards 108.13 notice when the market was pushing here it's a classic creation lower the markets in a clear downward trend creates a new multi month low pulls back at the previous high creates a new multi month low and when it bounces back it doesn't take out at the previous high so while we remain south of the 111 region that could point to further losses for the dollar yen but should be a decisive break north of 111 that could put us back on track towards the 112 region and then north of that we would be looking towards the charity moving average at 112.46 so I'll just do sterling yen and then we'll be looking to wrap up the webinar just find out the currencies so looking at the sterling yen the chart has been pretty obvious since the mid July in a 30 year downward trend we have seen a bounce back we have seen a somewhat of a pushback in the pound particularly against the US dollar in the last number of weeks not too dissimilar here notice while the market was pushing lower we did see momentum in very much negative territory now we're seeing the market bounce back and positive momentum as well back to the positive side but seeing as we sort of kind of run into somewhat resistance in the charity moving average price which previously acted as support here and some support here it could be a sign that this is just a bounce back and a provider downward trend so the charity moving average comes into play at 142.46 so about 50 pips north of where we are currently we would like to see a decisive move north of that we would like to see the price action of around the kind of 143 taken out so that we can become more confident that this is just a resumption of a positive move in the last couple of weeks rather than the market pushing lower bounces back to the charity moving average and then goes on to create a new multi month low so like I said you can be more confident of a continued positive move if it takes out 143 the all support acting now as resistance the 50 moving average at 144 15 would then be the next level to watch out for and the north of that 145 if the market does turn over on itself that can actually take out the charity moving average convincingly this price here at 140 will be the next level to watch out for south of that the August low of 139.30 and then we would look towards the June low at 138.70 and then we would look back towards 138.00 the figure like the last market you're welcome the last market I'm not going to cover is the Australian dollar versus the US dollar because it's a few minutes beyond the schedule so the Australian dollar US dollar has had a great run throughout 2017 and I'm going to go back quickly to the may onwards as you can see here as the market was pushing higher it was somewhat reflected in positive momentum and this is a good example of why I like to talk about momentum because it's probably the most important thing that you're watching but also you want to see the rate of change is the buying momentum slipping or not so as you can see here the market was pushing creating new multi month highs which is great the momentum initially was positive but we're seeing buying momentum or positive momentum decline so that is your first warning sign that the divergence the market is creating new multi month highs but it's doing so at a reduced rate the buying pressure is running out and of course that's your first signal in itself and what do we see after that we saw a pullback of a few hundred points we saw a pullback of negative momentum comes into play and then we see a decline in negative momentum so this move here, looking at this year we could potentially see a swing back to positive momentum so should we see a turnaround a continued push higher from the mid-august upwards this could be a resumption of a wider positive trend that's been in play we could be looking towards 80 and then of course we'd be looking towards the August rather than the July high of 80 65 and then we're looking towards 81 and then beyond that any moves lower in the Aussie dollar we'd potentially find support in the 79, south of 79 we'd be looking at this price here in 78-75 and then back down towards this price action here just north of 78 itself before I finish up on this webinar I want to thank you for your time and attention as always let's quickly show you on our site where the news analysis, myself and my colleagues updates the news analysis section several times throughout the day this is where you can find the update news analysis also pointing out other other webinars that we do have coming up on the horizon under the learn tab which were you found obviously this webinar what we have on Wednesday the Wednesday at half nine sorry while she's starting with tonight rather we do have a webinar at 7pm London time on Monday the 4th of September so tonight 7 o'clock 7pm London time Trader Development Foundations of Check and Analysis we have this webinar here on Wednesday at half 7pm we have the commodity trends webinar and then back to next week as we do every single Monday we have the 12.15 webinar which I hosted by myself before I let you go on our platform I'm just going to show you where we do market insights some of the news analysis that we do is posted up on the news analysis section now like data updates get put into the insight section here so under market pulse second option down insights for kind of a short commentary brief commentary on a particular chart including a screenshot of a chart that can be found on our chart form so market pulse third option down chart form also if you're trading the financial markets you should always be keeping it off for the economic indicators and announcements which are coming out once again under market pulse the fourth option down is our economic calendar here this is going to be a breakdown of what the previous report was what the forecast was and then also as soon as the numbers are out itself it will give you an update immediately once those economic indicators have been released Ivan Dev Madden here market analyst at CMT markets thank you very much for tuning in and listening please sign up for future webinars and have a good trading week and good luck


The next item of business is First Minister's questions. At question number one, I call Douglas Ross. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. First Minister, do you agree that every victim of sexual harassment should be fully supported? First Minister? Yes, I do. I believe that very strongly, and when any victim of sexual harassment considers that that hasn't been the case, then whatever organisation is involved should reflect very seriously on that and make any necessary changes. That's how I intend to proceed as far as any issues relating to the SNP are involved here. Douglas Ross. If everything the First Minister has just said is true and she really believes that victims of sexual harassment should be fully supported, why is Patrick Grady, one of her MPs who has been found guilty of sexual harassment, still got the backing of the First Minister? First Minister? I have already been clear about those issues and I am certainly very willing to be so again today. Patrick Grady's behaviour was wrong. I have said this before. I will repeat it. I am very sorry that a member of the Westminster SNP group staff was subjected to an unwanted sexual advance. It shouldn't have happened and I think it is important to be very clear about that. Patrick Grady's behaviour was investigated by an independent process, an independent process that all parties in the House of Commons, as I understand, are signed up to. The findings of that independent process were of course published, as is right and proper, and a sanction was imposed, a sanction that was recommended by that independent process and replicated by the SNP Westminster group. In this situation there is also clearly a victim who feels that they were not properly supported in that process. Indeed, the victim in this case believes that the process exacerbated the trauma that was experienced, and I think that it is absolutely incumbent on any organisation in that position to take views of that nature very seriously. As I have already said before today and I have already said this today, that is a matter that the SNP must and will reflect on. Ian Blackford, the leader of our group at Westminster, has already confirmed an external review of the Westminster group processes and I think that that again is right and proper. The last thing that I would say, Presiding Officer, is this. I take these issues very seriously. It is incumbent on me to do so, but those issues are not unique to the SNP. All parties have faced those issues, and at times all parties have been criticised for their handling of those issues. All of us have lessons to learn. Obviously, I am only responsible in a party political sense for the SNP, but all of us in the society that we live in have lessons to learn and it is incumbent on all of us to do so. For my part, I am determined that that will be the case. Douglas Ross There was a ruling and a sanction from the independent complaints and grievance system within the UK Parliament, but that sanction does not have to be the same adopted by the SNP parliamentary party at Westminster. Patrick Grady has served just two days' suspension from the SNP at Westminster. Two days is an insult. Throughout this process, the victim has been disregarded. I hope that the First Minister listened to what he had to say this morning. The victim feels betrayed. He said that Patrick Grady and Ian Blackford tried to take advantage of me being young and inexperienced. He did the bare minimum of investigation. He described his life as a result of this ordeal as torture and a living hell. Most depressing of all, he said that the SNP are punishing any victim of this sort of behaviour. And punishing anyone who has come forward with a similar complaint as mine. This morning, he also said that there are lots of questions for the First Minister to answer as well and he made it clear that they are not getting answered. He said, and these are the victim's words today, I would like to see Nicola say more on the subject. So will the First Minister now tell the victim what was her reaction on hearing the leaked recording where Ian Blackford encouraged SNP MPs to support the guilty party instead of the victim? First Minister. First of all, in relation to the victim in this case, some days ago, in fact, I have already in a written message said sorry directly to them. I have also confirmed my willingness to meet directly and personally with the victim in this case. When, as I hope it will, that interaction takes place, I will say sorry in person. It is not my behaviour that was investigated but I am leader of the SNP and I take that responsibility very seriously. The recording of the Westminster group meeting, I think, reveals part of what was wrong in that case. Indeed, some of the individuals who were recorded at that meeting have already said that themselves. It demonstrated and I was not at the meeting, so whether that is an accurate overall reflection of discussion, I cannot comment on, but what I have heard suggests that more concern was shown for the perpetrator of this behaviour than was shown for the victim of it. I think that that is utterly unacceptable and that is something that I will be very clear about. I repeat the point that I made earlier on. We live in a society now, thankfully, where behaviour of this nature is not accepted and is not rightly brushed under the carpet in the way that it used to be. I am sure that everybody in the chamber remembers the two years in total that I was subjected to pretty gruelling investigations over separate instances. I would argue that that came about because I refused to brush certain things under the carpet. It is important that there is transparency and it is important that any organisation facing those issues reflects and fully faces up to them. That is what I am going to ensure happens for the SNP, but I will repeat the final point that I made. It will be my final point here as well, Presiding Officer. All parties have faced this. There are two Westminster by-elections happening today because of behaviour on the part of Conservative MPs. All parties have faced this. All parties have been criticised, including in those cases for their handling of these matters. It is important for all of us—I will simply speak for myself—that somebody in my position should not sit in a glass house throwing stones about those things. We should sort those things out when they arise in our own parties. That is what I intend to do for the SNP, and I think that it is what all leaders should do when it arises in their parties as well. I know that the First Minister wants to make this about other parties and other parts of the country, but the fact that we have two by-elections today is because Conservative MPs have been suspended and resigned from Parliament. Patrick Grady has been suspended for 48 hours, and the First Minister called the recording of the SNP group meeting utterly unacceptable. However, that has been public for almost a week, and this is the first we are hearing from the First Minister about it. Her apology will be welcome, but the victim this morning rejected Ian Blackford's apology. He called it a cop-out and a publicity stunt. The victim said that Ian Blackford has only apologised to protect his own position. Again, quoting the victim directly, he said that it seems like the SNP and their Ian Blackford at Westminster have not learned a thing, and they are still trying to close ranks and discredit the victim by not really addressing any of the issues. He added that nobody can really seriously believe that they are going to make improvements to the procedure as long as Ian Blackford is still in post. The First Minister has to answer that charge. This is a deep systemic problem in the governing party here in Scotland, and it is an all-too familiar tale. Last year, in similar circumstances, Nicola Sturgeon stood up and said in this chamber, and I quote, It will be a priority for me, for as long as I am First Minister, to ensure that lessons are learned and the trust is re-established so that anyone who considers in the future that they have suffered sexual harassment has the confidence to come forward and knows that their concerns will be listened to and addressed. First Minister, listening to your own words from a year ago and the victim's words today isn't it the case that no lessons have been learned? That's not the case, and I stand by every single word that has just been quoted. Obviously, the particular issue that we're discussing today is not a Scottish Government issue, it's an SNP issue, but in the Scottish Government we have a new complaints process in place that was put in place after a very elaborate consultation with trade unions to ensure that we have a process in place that people do have confidence in and feel that they are able to use. It's important that we reflect on this situation to ensure that, if there are changes needing to be made to the process, those changes are made. In terms of sanction, as I said, an independent process investigated that in detail and recommended the sanction that it considered was appropriate in this case. That's an independent process that all parties are signed up to, and I think that all parties should respect. The last point that I would make is this. Douglas Ross will characterise whatever way he chooses. That is up to him. I think that people listening will hear me take those issues extremely seriously. I don't think that they will have heard me try to make it all about other parties, but what they will have heard me say is something that I think that all of us should reflect on. If I was standing here saying that the SNP's got no issues here, it's all about the Conservatives or Labour, I would be showing that I did not understand the systemic nature of those issues. If Douglas Ross is absolutely rightly raising those issues with me when they arise with the SNP, but if he is really saying that this is somehow a problem uniquely for the SNP, I would argue that he is demonstrating that he doesn't understand the systemic, society-wide nature of those issues. I will take those issues very seriously whenever it is the Scottish Government or the SNP that is accused of having people that have behaved inappropriately. As I said a moment ago, I went through some of the most difficult times of my whole time in politics because I wasn't prepared to have allegations made against somebody who had been very close to me, simply swept under the carpet. It's really important that all of us face up to this for my part, I will, and I would encourage everybody else to do likewise. Last week, an investigation in the UK Parliament was made public, and it concluded that a senior SNP MP was guilty of making an unwanted sexual advance to a teenage member of staff. The First Minister in response to Douglas Ross has just said that it was right that those investigations were published and it was right and proper. Over a month ago, I asked the First Minister to make public the outcome of investigations against ministers in her own Government. She refused, instead claiming that it couldn't be revealed due to GDPR. That despite the SNP rightly demanding the publication of investigations against Preeti Patel, the investigations of that were made public. The outcome of the investigation into Patrick Grady was made public by the UK Parliament. Why won the First Minister make public outcomes of investigations by the Scottish Government into the conduct of Scottish ministers? Or don't the Scottish people deserve the same transparency? Yes, I think that people deserve transparency, and I'm grateful to Anasawa for raising that because it gives me the opportunity to update on what I said when he last raised this issue with me. What I said in the chamber then is true—it is absolutely the case—that we are limited in terms of what we can publish by legal requirements, data protection and confidentiality issues. That is not a situation that I am comfortable with. I wasn't comfortable with it, as probably people could see when I answered these questions before the last time I was asked about it. Therefore, as a result of that, I sought further advice. I asked for advice on whether, in future, there would be ways of making it possible for us to report publicly the outcome of complaints involving ministers and, if there was a way of doing that, without breaching the legal requirements that I have referred to. The advice that I have only recently had is that, while we cannot apply that retrospectively, there is a way to do that in relation to future complaints. I can confirm to the chamber that that will involve changes to the ministerial code and probably also to the complaints procedure that is in place, but work is now under way to make the necessary changes to facilitate that happening in future. I welcome that response from the First Minister, but it is convenient that that response talks about future investigations and not previous investigations. Let us take the advice of Nick Maccarrol, the law lecturer at Glasgow University, who said in response to this, that, as public officials, ministers would expect all their activity and decisions to be open to scrutiny. Even in the realm of employment law, that would be the case. Clearly legal experts—the First Minister has a law degree, used to be a solicitor—should know that. Even legal experts believe that there is not a case to hide behind GDPR here. No one is asking to publish personal details of the victim, but it is perfectly reasonable to ask the Scottish Government to make clear the outcome of investigations against Scottish ministers. A pattern has emerged when it comes to the SNP. Close ranks, do as little as you can and hope that the difficult questions go away. On Sunday, Angus Robertson described an SNP MP making unwanted sexual advances towards a teenager as not career ending. We heard a leaked recording where SNP MPs were cheering and applauding Ian Blackford's call for them to rally round Patrick Graydy. The SNP chief whip then threatened legal action against whistleblowers. Support for the perpetrator, no support for the victim. Do you agree with Ian Blackford and your SNP MPs? Do you agree with the words of Angus Robertson? Do you agree with your SNP chief whip that it is more important to protect the SNP than to protect the victim? Nobody has said that it is more important to protect the SNP than it is to protect the victim. I have made my views today very clear that support for victims of sexual harassment must come first. If that does not happen and if a victim feels that they have not been supported, then the obligation is on the organisation. In this case, that is the SNP to reflect on that, not somehow suggest that it is the victim that is at fault. I could not be clearer about that. I want to have the conversation directly with the victim in this case to make sure that I have got as deep as possible an understanding of exactly the experience in that case, so that I can reflect on what changes are needed. I do not shy away from that in any way. In relation to the wider issue—I, of course, do have a law degree, not only that, and Nick McHenrol and I were in the same class at Glasgow University when we studied law. He obviously has a wealth of expertise, but I, of course, have to rely on the advice that I get as First Minister. That advice in this respect, in terms of retrospective situations, is clear, but I was not prepared to accept that without challenging that for the future. That is why I sought further advice. That is why I asked for advice on the ways in which we could be consistent with our legal obligations, but also consistent with what I believe is an important obligation, that of transparency. That is why we will now move forward to make necessary changes to the ministerial code and to the procedure to allow information to be published in future. I think that it is important in any situation that somebody in my position takes these things seriously. I am doing that, and I will make whatever changes is necessary to get to a position for my party and for my Government where we live up to the standards that all of us expect. I think that every organisation, including all political parties, has a duty to do likewise. I can only imagine Nicola Sturgeon's response if the Tories were making that same defence of Prety Patel in terms of her allegations as she is making of Scottish ministers here in this Parliament. Going back to the Patrick Grady incident, this incident happened six years ago, and only now there is talk of change. In those six years, Patrick Grady has been an SNP candidate twice. He has been promoted to chief whip and actually led a debate on harassment while being investigated for harassment. It has taken the victim going to the press for this First Minister to talk about taking action and all too familiar story when it comes to the SNP. After 15 years in Government, there is a culture of secrecy and cover-up at the heart of this Government. This is a First Minister who is unforgiving when it comes to her opponents or anyone who disagrees with her, but expects forgiveness from everyone else. In 2002, Nicola Sturgeon said of the then Government that they have been in power for so long that they no longer think that they are accountable to anybody. There could be no better description for this Government. Why does Nicola Sturgeon believe that it is one standard for her and another standard for everyone else? The reality is that I do not. How long any party remains in Government in Scotland, in the UK and in most other countries in the world is entirely down to the electorate. That will be true of my Government just as it is for any other Government in the UK. In terms of what Anas Sarwar describes as a pattern, I do not think that in any way is substantiated. I have answered questions in this chamber in other cases where I have been absolutely very clear that I would not brush things under the carpet or be defensive when it came to reflecting on and facing up to changes. I refused to brush things under the carpet when allegations were made about somebody who was closer to me in politics than anybody else had been. I was subjected to rigorous investigations. Many people in this chamber talked about it in terms of being career-ending for me. Do I do anything different? Obviously, I would learn lessons from that process based on everything that we know about it. However, would I change the judgment that I made that it is important not to brush things under the carpet and that it is important to face up to them? No, I would not. I am not going to stand here. Perhaps that is what distinguishes me from some other politicians in some other places. I am not going to stand here and defend the indefensible. I am going to say that if things are wrong, if things represent failures and processes, then I am going to take the action to put them right. Just as the Scottish Government did when these issues were raised about the Scottish Government, I will make sure that it happens with the SNP as well. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Do you ask the First Minister when the cabinet will next meet? I am very grateful for that reply. The crisis in our NHS is directly linked to what is going on right now in social care.  There are currently 1,800 patients who are well enough to leave hospital but who cannot in large part because there is no care package to help them home. Presiding Officer, that is the equivalent of all the patients in Caithness General, Borders General, the Sick Kids, DGRI and Edinburgh Royal Infirmary put together. The Government solution to this is a ministerial takeover of social care, which my party is opposed from the start. Remember, it was SNP ministers who discharged Covid-positive patients into our care homes. We cannot afford to wait four years for the wrong solution. This crisis is at our gates right now. Can I ask the First Minister why she will not meet that crisis now, with proper pay, fair conditions and local reform? I think that it is right to move towards a national care service. Of course, this Parliament will scrutinise and debate the legislation that has been put forward. This is about improving the quality of services, it is about improving the consistency of services and, yes, it is about improving the terms and conditions of those who work in our social care sector. However, we are not waiting in order to establish a national care service to make these improvements now. We are already increasing the wages of those who work in the adult social care sector. In April this year, the minimum hourly rate increased, and this represents a 12.9% increase for those workers in just over a year for a full-time adult social care worker. That represents an uplift of over £1,600 over the course of the financial year. Those are minimum rates of pay. Of course, many employers will pay more than these minimums, so on that, we are taking action now. Of course, in the overall funding of social care, we are taking action. We are in the process over this Parliament of increasing funding for social care by 25%. That is in the region of £800 million. Parliament will scrutinise the legislation for the national care service, but let me just read the views of some this week to the publication of that legislation. Carers Scotland's director, we welcome the publication of this new bill, not least that it sets out in legislation, writes for carers. Tommy Whitelaw, national leader on caring for Alliance Scotland, is looking forward to the co-design of the national care service. The Carers Coalition, the introduction of the right to short breaks, is very welcome. Carer voices, similar comments. There is broad-based support for that, but it is important that we get the detail right. That is what the parliamentary process is for, but it is also what the co-design process is intended to deliver as well. We will now move to constituency and general supplementaries, and I call Alasdair Allan. Essential infrastructure works are due to start on Ueg Harbour this October. Interim arrangements put forward by CalMac would see the removal of all the ferry services to Tarbot and the loss of a third of the capacity to Lochmadi during the six-month closure period. Given that there are still a great many unknowns and unresolved issues, what consideration has the Scottish Government given to the option of postponing the works until viable interim arrangements can be put in place? I know that the transport minister is very aware of the concerns that communities have in relation to the planned Ueg Harbour closure. That is a project that is ultimately led by Highland Council, but the transport minister has agreed I understand to meet with Alasdair Allan in addition to meeting with the community board to discuss what further mitigations we might be able to support. The suggestion to postpone the port closure and delay the completion of works is an option that continues to be considered, but it does come with considerable risks. The clear focus of the project remains the safe and efficient replacement of infrastructure that is life-expired to use the technical term and improvement of capacity, reliability and resilience of the port at Ueg for the longer term benefit of routes to the western isles. My constituent Samantha received a letter from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on 20 June stating that his reassurance that both the Scottish Government and NHS Scotland remain committed to ensuring women who have experienced complications as a result of transvaginal mesh have access to the best possible care. That left Samantha upset and lost for words. She told me and I quote, I was heartbroken when I tried to access this care only for my hospital gynaecology department to tell me the NHS would not honour most of the measures. They were unwilling to refer me to the Glasgow unit and scared me half to death by saying people like me will never be 100 per cent mesh free. It's as if they're trying to put us off mesh removal surgery. First Minister, you stated that we will do everything possible to get these women the treatment and the care that they need. Where is the evidence that this is happening? There is a wealth of measures that have been taken to improve the experience of women who have suffered because of mesh. That includes, for example, a complex pelvic mesh removal service. We continue to take forward changes to improve that experience and ensure that women have access to the treatment that they need. I have previously met groups of women. I did so with the then chief medical officer and the then health secretary and continued to be committed to taking forward all of those changes. Obviously, I'm not aware of Samantha's particular circumstances, nor have I seen the letter that she received from the health secretary, but I'm happy to look at that. If we can provide further information that would be of assistance to Samantha, I'm happy to ensure that that is done. The First Minister must agree that it's totally unacceptable for freight capacity to US to be cut by a third during the six months when the Uigh harbour is closed for redevelopment. There is a solution. It is possible to put in place a temporary link span during this time. Will she commit to that today to make sure that ferries can operate to their normal timetable while the harbour is being redeveloped? I won't repeat everything that I've said to Alasdair Allan except to say that, firstly, I understand the importance of this issue and I do understand the concerns that communities have. I'm not going to commit today to a particular solution without the proper consideration that that would require and merit. However, as I said in my answer to Alasdair Allan, any options and solutions that are put forward will be properly considered. That is why the Transport Minister has agreed to meet not just with Alasdair Allan but with the ferry community board. Any possible mitigations that the Government might be able to support will be properly considered. On the specific one that she has put forward, when that consideration has happened, I'm happy to ask the Transport Minister to feedback directly to her. Fiona Hyslop. With British railways in Kiosk, an RMT representative has referred to Westminster Tory Government's intransigence by saying—I repeat the quote—perhaps the UK Government should take a feather out of the Scottish Government's hat and propose a 5 per cent, along with a five-year no compulsory redundancy agreement. Does the First Minister recall that some weeks ago, at First Minister's questions, I warned of the UK Government's deeply damaging approach to industrial relations? Now we learn that it is proposing to legislate to allow use of agency workers during a legally-balloted strike action. Does the First Minister share my view that this is dangerous Tory ideology designed to inflame rather than resolve this extremely damaging dispute? I do recall very well Fiona Hyslop warning about the dangers of this dispute escalating if it was not resolved. Of course, people across the UK are paying the price for the Tory anti-trade union rhetoric—in fact, the Tory anti-trade unionism—which I completely depricate. We should respect workers across our economy, we should respect public sector workers and we should seek to negotiate fair resolutions to disputes, particularly at a time of soaring inflation being so exacerbated in the UK by the folly of Brexit. The real strike that is crippling the UK right now is not the result of a dispute with ScotRail, it is a dispute with Network Rail and with English train operating companies, therefore it is entirely a reserved matter. The other thing that I remember from a few weeks ago in the chamber was the potential for a ScotRail dispute, Tory MSPs getting up and demanding intervention from this Government to resolve it. Let me repeat the call today for the UK Government to start doing their job to get round the table to bring a resolution to this and to drop their anti-trade unionism and show some respect for workers across the economy. Last week, the courier's headline, Dundee Killer Robbie McIntosh, to get parole hearing this summer, related to a murderer who, whilst on home leave from serving a life sentence in 2017, carried out a brutal attempt to murder a random, lone female dog walker in Templton Woods in Dundee. In October 2017, he was sentenced to a lifelong restriction order with a minimum of five years before being considered for release on licence. Now we learn that this dangerous individual will be given a parole hearing on or around August 8, the day after the anniversary of the attack and less than five years from sentencing. First Minister, what message does this send to women like the victim of this shocking attack other than that this Government's justice system will not protect you? First Minister, before responding to the question, I acknowledge again Mrs McDonald's bravery in continuing to raise those issues. I know that she wants to ensure that all parties learn from this case, and certainly that is what I want to see and I am determined to see as well. There was of course a significant case review into this matter. The Scottish Government and the SPS accepted all the recommendations for them in that significant case review, and the Scottish Prison Service has taken a range of action already to respond to those recommendations. Home leave for prisoners—obviously I am not talking about this particular case at the moment, I am talking about the general situation—home leave for prisoners is unnecessary and accepted part of the rehabilitation process. Prisoners are subject to assessment and review and rightly so, but where a situation arises that shows that this has not gone in the way that it should have done, it is absolutely vital that lessons are learned. In terms of parole hearing, the sentence imposed following the conviction in any case is a matter for a court, and in turn that determines when someone's sentence to an order for lifelong restriction may be considered for parole under licence conditions. It is then a matter for the independent parole board to consider when and whether an individual can be released. To ask the First Minister, in light of the increase in Covid-19 cases, what measures the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that everyone eligible for the spring booster vaccine receives it? As of 20 June, 91 per cent of those aged 75 and over, and 86 per cent of elderly care home residents have received a fourth dose of the Covid vaccine, the majority of which have been administered as part of the spring booster programme. I want to again express my gratitude to all NHS staff and partners who have helped to achieve that uptake. We have been working closely with health boards to encourage uptake and have introduced a range of outreach activities to build trust or remove barriers for people who might not otherwise take up the vaccination offer. Those include using mobile outreach units provided by the Ambulance Service, creating Covid sense posters in multiple languages and formats and developing a culturally sensitive vaccine explainer video informed by insights from organisations representing different communities. Given the current high number of cases that we are experiencing right now, I would again take the opportunity to urge all those eligible for the vaccine, including from the spring booster, to come forward and get that protection. I thank the First Minister for her detailed answer. As someone who has had her spring booster, I would indeed endorse the statements that she has made and especially as we see cases now rising. Further to that with cases, reportedly at 1 in 30, and undoubtedly that is an understatement, and hospital admissions rising, we can all see where we might be headed if we throw caution to the winds. I am as sick of restrictions as an ex-person, but what should we be doing as individuals and in fact in commercial situations? What should we be doing to try to nip this in the bud and not head towards a restrictive winter? We are seeing a rising trend of cases at the moment. We consider that that is being driven by the BA4 and BA5 subvariant of Omicron. It is important that we continue to monitor that and the Scottish Government will continue to monitor that very closely. None of us want to see a return to restrictions of any nature. We are not at this stage seeing the translation of cases into hospital cases in the way that we did at earlier stages of the pandemic, particularly before vaccination, but that does not mean that this illness is mild for everyone. Having recently had Covid, it is a nasty virus and can affect people seriously. Christine Grahame is right to remind us that it is important to continue to take precautions to try to limit the potential for transmission of the virus and it is important, above all, if you are eligible for any dose of the vaccine and you have not yet had that dose of the vaccine, to get it because it provides significant protection against serious illness. Covid cases have been rising, hospital admissions are rising too and long Covid cases are going up. It is over six months since many people have had their third vaccination, including people who are in the shielding category because of their health condition. Protection from vaccination is now waning. Will the First Minister bring forward the autumn vaccination programme to this summer, given that we are facing another wave of Covid infection? In light of the press conference held by Long Covid Scotland today, what urgent action will she take to improve services and research for the condition? First on vaccination, we continue to monitor very carefully informed by expert scientific and clinical opinion the effects of vaccination. It is important to be responsible about the terminology and the language that we use about the impact of vaccination. In terms of the timing and the coverage of any vaccination programme or phase of a vaccination programme—this applies to the autumn campaign—we will continue to be guided by the advice and recommendations of the JCVI. That is the responsible thing to do. The Government has acted quickly to ensure that recommended vaccination gets to all eligible people as quickly as possible, and we will continue to do that. On Long Covid, we are investing this year to support NHS boards and partners to improve the care and support that is available for people with Long Covid. For example, the investment that we are making will enable boards to introduce care co-ordinator roles so that there is a single point of contact for people with Long Covid. It will provide extra resources to support person-centred thorough assessments of the needs of people with Long Covid to make sure that they can then be supported to access the most appropriate support for them, and it will provide additional capacity for community rehabilitation services to support people suffering from Long Covid with the issues that affect their day-to-day lives. To ask the First Minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made of reports that incidents of bullying in NHS Scotland have risen by nearly 50 per cent in five years. Bullying is always unacceptable. We want people to have avenues available within health boards to raise any experiences or concerns that they have. That is why a new bullying policy was introduced in 2020 to ensure that more support was available. The Government also commissioned John Sturrock, QC, to review the culture in NHS Highland in particular. One outcome of that was the establishment of a ministerial working group to examine the issues of culture more broadly. That is work that happened previously that was impacted by Covid. However, I can confirm today that we are now developing a new national leadership development programme for health, social work and social care sectors to carry that work on and help foster an open and welcoming and supportive culture in the NHS where all staff are valued and treated with dignity and respect. First Minister, in the north-east, the picture is particularly alarming, with reported cases having tripled in NHS Tayside and doubled in NHS Grampian. Those cases will have had a deeply damaging effect on the mental health of staff at a time when recruitment and retention are an endemic issue in our NHS. The First Minister mentions the Sturrock review. What assessment has been made that lessons from the Sturrock review into bullying in NHS Highland have been implemented by health boards? What urgent steps is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that health boards foster an open and tolerant workplace culture going forward? Before I come back again to the very serious issue that has been raised here, let me acknowledge that recruitment is a challenge in the national health service, as it is in many parts of our public services and, indeed, our economy more generally. One of the reasons that recruitment is such a challenge, and it is appropriate to say this, this is six years to the day since the Brexit referendum, is because of Brexit, the ending of free movement, for example. Those issues should remind us all of that folly, and I hope that it particularly reminds Conservatives of that. On the issues of bullying in the national health service, we should all be very clear that bullying is unacceptable. It has no place anywhere. It certainly has no place in the national health service, and we should unite those politicians to send that message loudly and clearly. On John Sturrock's review of cultural issues in NHS Highland, which goes to the specific question that was raised, the health secretary asked all health boards to consider the recommendations, review their internal assurance mechanisms, and advise the Government of actions that they have undertaken. We will continue to monitor progress on that closely, and, as I said in my original answer, we are also developing a new national leadership development programme that we will launch later this year. First Minister, in the last Parliament, your Government agreed to debate the Starrick report. In fact, you agreed in this Parliament to debate the Starrick report. Do you think that the fact that you have not has not helped this bullying going on in NHS, and that you should now fulfil your promise and provide that time as you have undertaken twice before? First Minister, I am certainly happy to consider Government time for that. Of course, Opposition parties can choose to debate in their time any issue that they want to debate. I think that it is important that we have vigorous and robust debate in this Parliament, but I think that it is more important or as important on these issues that we ensure the recommendations from John Sturrock's review are actually implemented, which is why the work that I referred to in my earlier answer is so important. Those issues do matter. It is vital that everybody who works in a national health service has a culture that supports them, not one that in any way allows them to be bullied or intimidated, and John Sturrock's recommendations certainly will help to ensure that that is the case. To ask the First Minister when the Scottish Government plans to appoint a women's health champion in light of the appointment of a women's health ambassador for England. We will be appointing a women's health champion or ambassador this summer. That will be an important step in the delivery of a women's health plan, which of course was the first women's health plan published by any Government in the UK. I understand that the UK Government is still developing its women's health strategy for England and that the Welsh Government has committed to drafting a women's health plan, but that has not yet been done. Through the Scottish plan, we have prioritised improving services and information for women, including initiating new research on endometriosis, launching a new women's health platform on NHS Inform and increasing the choices that women have to access contraception at community pharmacies. I thank the First Minister for that answer. Women across Scotland face the significant challenge of health inequalities on a daily basis. For many women, those inequalities can define their lives, in some cases simply because they are women and in others because they are women who live in areas with higher levels of deprivation. It is clear that the women need many of the short and medium-term actions in the women's health plan. I thank the minister for confirming that the appointment will be made. If the First Minister truly recognises the urgency of that matter, will she give women across Scotland the answer that they not only want but need and ensure that the appointment will be meaningful and will take forward the important short-term actions from the women's health plan, which have not been forthcoming so far? Yes, the appointment will be meaningful. I am not entirely sure what is intended by that question. Of course it will be meaningful. Anybody appointed to this role will have expertise that is required. It is important that we take forward all the action points and recommendations in the women's health plan. As I said, we were the first Government in the UK to produce a women's health plan. Since the launch of the plan, we have seen progress made on a range of actions. The development of the women's health platform on NHS inform is an important source of information. The jointly funded research call with the women's health plan on endometriosis research is also important. We have established a menopause specialist network, which is meeting regularly to provide peer support and support for primary care teams, which I think is really important. We have made progress on access to contraception in pharmacies and action on menstrual health, including menopause, which is now included in the Scottish curriculum. A range of things have already happened, but it is important that we drive forward all the recommendations in this, which is why the appointment of a women's health champion is such a key part of it. As I said in my original answer, that appointment will happen this summer. I will return briefly to general and constituency supplementary questions. I will take one final question from Maggie Chapman. Yesterday, in the Commons, the Deputy Prime Minister laid out his plans for a so-called British Bill of Rights. In reality, this is a rights removal bill. It would rip up the European Court of Human Rights from domestic law and rewrite the Scotland Act. In their place, we are supposed to rely on Mr Robb's common sense. It becomes clearer every day that only by becoming independent can we build a fairer and more equal Scotland. Will the First Minister join me in opposing these dangerous plans and country outline what impact that might have on our plans to introduce a Scottish human rights bill during this Parliament? I could hear the discomfort from the Conservative benches, as Maggie Chapman was speaking, and I am not surprised that they are so deeply uncomfortable. Having a UK Government that Scotland did not elect, a UK Government that has already taken us out of Brexit against our will, now ripping up, removing or at the very least diluting human rights absolutely is yet another argument for Scotland becoming independent. The bill will impact on devolved responsibilities, and it is therefore important that the UK Government properly consults with us. I do not hold out much hope of that happening in reality, but we have plans for a human rights bill, and we remain committed to taking that forward over the course of this Parliament.


TfNN, headline, News Update. Hello everyone, Basel Chapman here for the 3 p.m. Eastern Time Tiger Financial News Network Market Update. Dow's down 59 at $35,234. Very nice breakout on Friday of that resistance level. I'll talk about that in a moment. I'll be doing the Tom O'Brien show and that was really a good breakout. We'll see it happening. Look here in the S&P. So the Dow is up down 59. The S&P. That's going to be interesting because there's a slight divergence. I think maybe IBM's pulling back the Dow, but the S&P is breaking out. It's at $44.83. It's up 12 points. It's really important. There's that one-to-one to the upside so you're not going to be able to extend that pink line. I'll do that during the show. I'll explain how it's done and it's breaking above the falling ax resistance in the weekly chart. So this is very good action, up 0.27%. Now look at the QQQ. What a nice session today. That's barely broke out on Friday, but today's sharply above that resistance inside track repellent zone. It's now propellent zone. It's up 3.21 at 372. This is the Invesco Trust series. This is the trading vehicle that we've got, the ETF. And look at the IWM. IWM had a terrible session on Friday. Not a great session today either. It's really struggling at that resistance line, basically going sideways for months now. We're looking at gold and we'll see if gold's managed to get a little bit. Yep, it's got a little bit of strength. It's down just two. It's down a little bit more, but it's stuck in a trading range. One of the reasons is that the dollar is still showing some strength. It's pulled back from its highest, most recent high at 93.92, but it is holding pretty well. And what we need to look at here is the TLT and the TLT are bonds. Bonds are rallying since the yields are coming down a little bit. That kind of helps the market in a way, but what's also very important here is the crude oil. Now this is going to be something I'll take a little time during the show, because I want to talk about the crude oil. Fantastic rally. It's just starting to bump into some resistance. It could have a digestive phase, but at 81.69 down 4 cents, that whole area of the 79 to 77 area is going to be at the test of support because so far this is fantastic action. And even more importantly, we're looking at the volatility index. Look at this. The VIX index trying to rally. Now it's only up 9 cents to 16.39. It's just telling us that the fear factor hasn't really crept in to hold on any day for at least the last week or so. I'll be back in a moment for the Tom O'Brien show. This is Basil Chapman signing off. We'll be back in a moment. I hope you can stay and hope you can get your questions in<PHONE_NUMBER>. Thank you.


Organizers of the Tokyo Olympics say that they would hold a ticket lottery to reduce a number of domestic spectators to attend opening and closing ceremonies as well as several other sports. Tokyo 2020 senior director of ticketing Hidenori Suzuki told reporters in a news conference that he will announce the re-lottery results in the early hours of July 6th. He added that the ticket holders who are unable to, unable rather or do not wish to attend the games, can apply for a refund between July 6th and July 15th. Ticket holders to be selected in a new lottery after domestic spectators were capped up at 10,000 at each venue. They will be asked to refrain from talking en route to go straight to venues and then straight home and cannot ask athletes for autographs.


January the 11th 2020 is probably one of the most important days and meetings in our party's history so far. We're getting together our activists, candidates, those who help candidates in a meeting in Birmingham, and people will go away from that meeting ready. We have candidates already identified, they know who they are, they know where they want to stand, and we will be starting to campaign in seats that we are standing in to win next May.  We want to stand as many as we can, but we will be targeting winnable seats, and we will be targeting them early and we will win some. So do have a think, get on board, get involved, and become a candidate. This is the greatest thing you can do for this party, for this country, for the truth, for justice, because we are fighting, we're fighting a very, very just cause, and it's a fight for truth, it's a fight for liberty, it's a fight for the decent, ordinary British majority who are trampled on and who government after government gives very little consideration to. We're fighting back for the forgotten majority, and that's not a slogan, it's the reality. And our long term plan as a party is to win seats in these early years, to win local government seats, to show just how serious we are about standing up for local people and ordinary people and the best, the salt of the earth people that are the backbone of this country. Now, local government is really, really important, and actually it's where everyday life occurs. Members of parliament don't really have much power in terms of local issues. Members of parliament, their job is to run the country, to set national policy, but they're not really very heavily involved in local issues, and I think many people don't actually realise this, that MPs have very little power in local issues. It's the local council that determines your day to day life, schools, traffic, housing, it's an extraordinarily significant and extraordinarily important layer of government. And people, the voting public, actually tend to be a lot more generous with their vote, they're a lot more willing to vote differently at local election than they are at national election. So, let's do this. Let's get stuck in in May. Do give serious thought. Now, I know that you've got to deal with people like Antifa, but look, all our past candidates will tell you. It's a great experience. These people, they like to shout and jump up and down, but they don't actually do anything to us. Our candidates have had a good time, they've had a great experience, and it is a great life experience.  That's what they want. Do stand. This is how we're going to win our country back.  This is how we fight back at local elections. They are so crucially important. So, do consider standing. Get in touch with us. I will put a couple of email addresses below. Do get in touch with us. If you want to stand or if you want more information about standing and crucially, if you don't want to stand but you want to help out, if you want to help the fight back for truth and justice and Britain from the background, then your contribution is every bit as key and we're every bit as grateful for it. So if you want to go leafletting and help our candidates, do get in touch but really, really importantly, come along on January 11th to this meeting. It'll be in Birmingham and you will go away from there knowing everything you need to know about helping a candidate or standing a candidate. You will have resources to help you get on with campaigning in your chosen seat as soon as you leave that meeting. That's the aim. Do have a think about it. Do get in touch. Any questions, any advice, any support we can offer, we will do. Get in touch. Thank you. This is so important.


I'm just going to take five minutes to sort of talk about what we're doing today. And then we'll launch right into a bunch of the embryo-lethal talks. It's going to be a little complicated. We're going to be moving laptops up here, but we will do our best to stay on schedule. So the last two days we've been doing this inward-looking review of progress and issues and procedural kind of stuff for the INPC. Today is meant to be a scientific discussion, more open-ended, more outward-looking. We're going to talk more about collaborations and impact on the community and take a completely different view and focus just really on science and the impact of the program. So as you remember, last year we had the human disease gene discovery programs like UDN, KIDS First, CMG, and those folks that we collaborate with. So this year we're having the embryo-lethal folks. From our perspective at NIH, as program people, it's an interesting problem of trying to mesh a U-grant, which is a cooperative agreement, with R-grants, which are investigator-initiated, free-range, do whatever you want, follow the science kind of structure. We don't tell these folks what they have to do. We don't give them milestones. We don't negotiate that kind of stuff. They do what they want. It's all good. Ninety-eight percent of NIH grants operate on that mechanism, so it's a little bit strange. But the science is all good, so we're really going to talk about the science. My interest is not that important. Then we're going to get into the new initiatives that relate to the embryo-lethal. So the theme is embryo-lethal. We're going to follow that on with Steve and Jason talking about the F-zero phenotyping and trying to move things to some in-feet row. So can we do mouse phenotyping without the mouse, which saves us a lot of time, money, and effort, and seems appropriate for the pre-E9.5 since we don't do any imaging or anything with them anyway. So we'll explore that. And then tying that into the larger community, I had gotten some suggestions for names. And Terry had said, you should talk to the folks at the Broad. You have some poll at the Broad. You can get somebody there. So I shot off some emails, and they said, no, no, no. You want to hear from Jason Moffat, because he's the thought leader here. So they put me in touch with Jason, who's roaming around there. So he's going to talk about his cell-based essential screening. So that covers sort of the morning session. And then hopefully these folks will be willing to talk a little bit at the end of the meeting, just brainstorm about future directions. In the afternoon, we're also going to talk about future plans and how we're looking stuff. So Carolyn's going to come by and talk about the strategic planning at NHGRI. So we're planning our next 10 years. There's a lot more movement into sort of functional follow-up, some new dimensions that I think are interesting. Not only functional follow-up, but also genetic modifiers and genetic background effects. And we're trying to put together some initiatives in that area. And also data integration and our movement in the informatics domain. So we'll have two talks. One is Julia Wang's going to talk about Marvel 2. So Common Fund has just funded some supplements and now has put out an RO3 FOA for data integration. So they're looking to bring together all their major datasets that are being produced by all the Common Fund programs. And Julia's got one of the, and Hugo have one of the first awards in that area. And then we're going to have Rob Williams come and talk to us about genetic modifiers, gene networks, big data and data integration for a different perspective, you know, on comp. We don't have to think about, we don't operate independently of the larger scientific community. How do we interact with them? Our mandate is single genetic background, inbred strain. One inbred strain. We don't look at genetic modifiers. Should we, how do we interact with people who think about that kind of stuff? I mean I've always envisioned comp 2 really being comp on a different genetic background. I'm starting to look at that. So hopefully we'll have some productive discussions around that. And then the other blind spot for comp really is the cell phenotype. Other than histology, how do we relate to cell-based phenotyping? And I've been talking to Cand about the connection with omics there. But there may be also some initiatives coming out of genome that are cell-based stuff. So there's, you know, other opportunities to think about where we're going to be in the next 10 years. So that's today. And it should be interesting. So we'll start with the first embryo talk and I will log in and get the WebEx people online.