I thank the First Minister for her statement. We're now going to move to a debate on the First Minister's statement on taking Scotland forward. At this stage, I can ask all members who wish to speak to ensure that their cards are inserted properly and ask them to press their request to speak buttons. I now invite Ruth Davidson to open the debate. I thank the First Minister for her advance notice of her speech. With today's session, this Parliament begins the real work of holding the Government to account for the next five years. I believe that that task has never been more important. We get down to business today in the knowledge that decisions on education, on the health service and on all our public services have been stacking up and now require our attention. Added to that are the huge new responsibilities this Parliament is soon to take over tax and welfare. No longer are we here simply to argue over how best the Government spends a fixed sum, we now must decide how best we raise money, which people and businesses that money is taken from and how we best grow the economy to ensure those funds increase. The rewards and the risks are great. What is clear to me is that, if the last parliamentary session was about deciding the shape and identity of our country, this next parliamentary session should be about setting the policy direction and goals of our country for the coming years. For me, it makes fax analysis and evidence-based policy provision all the more important. This is something that my group of MSPs will be determined to bring to this chamber and to its committees. The Conservative group was elected on a promise to provide a strong opposition to the Scottish Government. That does not mean shouting louder, emoting harder or a more frenzied gnashing of teeth. Instead, we intend to provide a forensic challenge to the policies of this Government. If the Government wants support, then we want to see the evidence and the facts that back their plans up. We will set out a clear vision for how we hope they will proceed. We want a Government that uses the tools of the state to create a stronger society, which does not seek to crowd out individual freedom but to liberate it, which offers support for communities and families to lead better lives, prioritising those who need it most, but which recognises that Government cannot do it all, and that Government, at its best, is not an imposition but a partnership with society. The First Minister has been criticised for caution and inaction during her first 18 months of tenure. It is a criticism that has stung. The fact is that the First Minister and her team now have a huge opportunity to build that partnership and use the next five years in office to make a real and lasting difference, but it does require the Government to take the right course. Either it can take the easy option, which says just keep things quiet, manage the way around problems, take regular potshots at the UK Government, all in the hope that the show stays on the road until the promised day of NDRF 2, or it can take the harder road, a choice that focuses on bringing about long-term change right now, change that will not be easy, change that will cause conflict among vested interests and create hostility of that, I am certain, but change that will show that this Government has left its mark, that will show in a decade's time that this Government wasn't just about one thing and one thing only, but that it made a lasting difference that Scotland can benefit from. We asked to be a strong opposition in this election because we wanted to encourage that better Government, and that is the task that we set ourselves today. On policy, the First Minister has said that the economy and education are her priority, so let me start on one and end today on the other. On the economy, we welcomed the news yesterday that inward investment is up in Scotland. A lesser woman than me might remark that it's good to see funds corks up due to the independence referendum now being released, but we shouldn't allow one set of good figures to blind us to the facts. Last year, Scotland's growth rate was 0.4 per cent behind the UK's unemployment rise again, up by 8,000 in the most recent figures. The jobless rate is higher than that of the rest of the UK at 6.2 per cent, compared to 5.1 per cent. Those figures say that the Federation of Small Businesses are an amber warning for the Scottish Government. That note of caution is being repeated by firms large and small across Scotland. Liz Cameron, the Scottish Chamber of Commerce Chair, tells us that Scotland is now on a knife edge between further growth on the one hand and a new period of recession on the other. We know that we have an economy that is dangerously reliant for growth on big infrastructure projects, which alone are not enough, so we need to plan for growth, a plan that demonstrates that Scotland is open for business. On tax, this isn't about ideology, it is simply about recognising the reality that we face and the test for us when deciding whether to support or oppose this Government will be whether we are helping or hindering growth. We will call out short-sighted fixes or tax rates born of envy rather than common sense. We will oppose the Government's planned increases in business rates on many firms across Scotland, a plan that is still awaiting justification in any way at all. We will propose as well as oppose, with evidence-based policy to show how a competitive system of taxation in Scotland can benefit us all. Quite simply, we must give people and firms reasons for starting here, for settling here and for growing their businesses here. I am aware that the Scottish Government will face pressure to do the opposite. Indeed, I read already that the three amigos leading the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems, are ganging up to form a new high-tax alliance, but I just remind my Labour and the Lib Dem friends that it was this positive forward-looking vision for Scotland of hitting hard-working people in the pockets that saw them lose 13 seats between them earlier this month. If you want to keep charging up the valley of death, please be my guest, but to the Scottish Government I say, in all seriousness, there is no long-term future in a policy direction that will only suck enterprise out of Scotland. We need to support and encourage our businesses, not hobble them by imposing levees, by doubling supplements and by increasing rate rises. Of course, it is not just through tax that the Scottish Government can boost the economy. There is so much more besides, and there are two areas in particular that will be a priority for us. We will press the Scottish Government to encourage a new house-building revolution for Scotland. With better regulations, a streamlined planning system and improved infrastructure, we should aim to build 100,000 new homes over the coming five years, half of them affordable. I welcome the First Minister's commitment to 50,000 affordable homes over the next Parliament, and we will hold her to that. Secondly, with the Scottish Government's capital budget rocketing over the coming years, let's see that put to good use. We will press for a transformative investment in energy efficiency, and we will call for £1 billion to be invested in our warm homes proposals, not just to cut bills and to reduce emissions as important as each of those are, but to help the mental, the physical and the respiratory health of home dwellers and to create thousands of new jobs as well. The money is there. The Scottish Government has previously said that energy efficiency is a national infrastructure priority, and today we are told of a warm homes bill, but up to now they have shown no plans and allocated little budget on actually making it so. We say, put your money where your mouth is, make energy efficiency a proper national infrastructure priority. 65 per cent of all homes and 80 per cent of rural properties have an EPC rating of D or worse. Invest in bringing those homes up to scratch, allocate 10 per cent of the capital budget by the end of the Parliament, reduce fuel poverty, start actually hitting some of this Parliament's environmental targets, create a warmer, healthier Scotland and see thousands more people employed, and that employment spread right across the country, even to the most remote areas. I was going to say before members and the Government start protesting about a lack of funding, but I see that they have already started. I suggest that they first examine whether their own Government is spending its own money wisely. Last week, we learned the full scale of the Government's failure to deliver the CAP programme. Hundreds of millions of pounds ripped out of our rural economy. We are now lumbered with a programme costing nearly £200 million, which will deliver less for more, which could soon run out of money and which may land us with financial penalties from the EU of up to £125 million. It is a scandal and it has severely damaged this Government's claim to competence. I, for one, don't think that families in Scotland should have to pay higher taxes to pay for that. I, for one, want to see this Scottish Government clean up a mess that is entirely of its own making and for which it should be utterly ashamed. That the economy and wealth creation is only one side of the equation. Public services and the provisions by Government lie on the other. On the health service, as we said in our manifesto, we will support financial protections for our NHS. We will join with others in backing significant increases in mental health services, because we know that that will have huge benefits in the long term. Our new health team will also seek to work constructively with the Scottish Government and find consensus where appropriate. We know, too, that a functioning healthy society does not come simply by investing in a good quality NHS to treat those who are ill. It only comes if we think more broadly about health. We will support greater integration between health and social care. It is the same person who needs help with adaptive housing and help with illness. We will not see the new welfare powers used to encourage people back into jobs, with the targets to halve the disability employment gap. We will back and support measures in our prisons to cut re-offending with a review of all-purpose full activity so that more release criminals are freed not just from jail but also from the cycle of crime. Finally, I wish to turn to education. I welcome the First Minister's focus on this in her speech, and indeed it is a good step forward that she wants to be judged on her performance. As I said at the start of today, this is the time for concerted action, and it is now time for all of us to be bold in our thinking. Too often, we as a nation have hidden from the hard facts with self-satisfied claims about how great Scotland's education system was in the past. However true that once was, we cannot afford to allow ourselves to do so now, not when standards and maths are tumbling, not when there is a lower proportion of children and primary reading well, and not when the numbers of secondary pupils who feel they belong to their school has fallen since the turn of the century. We should, as a Parliament, agree that the status quo is no longer an option. It is not about left versus right, it is about focusing on what works and on having the courage to challenge and to change where necessary. Let me set out today what I think are the priorities. We all now agree across this chamber on the vital role played by early years education. A statistic that we have heard too often in the last few months is that at age five, a child whose parents have no qualifications is often already 18 months behind the vocabulary of a child whose parents are degree educated. The Scottish Government has proposed offering 30 hours of childcare a week, which is welcome. We will, however, propose that instead of offering this for mostly three and four-year-olds, more should be allocated to children aged one and two, particularly those from deprived communities. Let's take action to stop the attainment gap at the point at which it starts. In the state school sector, we will urge genuine reform. As the OECD report into Scottish education made clear earlier this year, curriculum for excellence is at a watershed. The report concluded that we must now give strong leaders in schools and in local communities the chance to deliver it successfully. Our simple principle will be to demand that more power and control is driven down to where it belongs, and that is among school communities. It seems that in this area there is some consensus, and I have to say that we were flattered during the election campaign to find so many Scottish Conservative ideas published in January were repackaged in the SNP manifesto in April. We on these benches will use influence to ensure that those ideas come to fruition. We welcome today's announcement of a summit on school reform, and I take this opportunity, Presiding Officer, to confirm my attendance and that of my education team. The Government says that local school communities should have more say over education, and we agree. The Government now also says that it supports the creation of so-called school clusters with its own governing bodies, and again we agree here too. Those are already being trialled in some parts of Scotland, and they are their right approach. Let's be clear at what the aim is. It is to give strong school leaders the chance to co-ordinate and run their local school communities because that's how great schools are created. However, where we will oppose the Government is on any attempt to further centralise the control over education. The new education secretary must resist the temptation of assuming that he can improve things by ensuring that he controls all of the leaders in Edinburgh. Whether through a national education service or a series of yet more quangels overseeing schools, we believe that this is the wrong step. Instead, the SNP Government would be better served by spreading a little independence around our education sector. While he's at it, I urge the new education secretary to reinstate Scotland in some of the international surveys that we no longer take part in and reverse its predecessors' mistakes. When it comes to higher education funding, I got the distinct impression from the election campaign that I may not get much change from the SNP on my ideas here. However, slap yourselves on the back about the benefits of free university education if you must, but remember that it comes at the cost of slapping further education colleges in the face. It's also seen poorer Scots less able to even walk through the front gate of a university than if they lived anywhere else in the UK. Education should be the best way to change lives for the better, but the SNP's middle-class giveaways means that those who've most agaim from life-changing chances are those who have been most harmed by this Government's policies. We on these benches will continue to push for more funding for further education colleges over the course of this Parliament to reverse the SNP's cuts in the last one. The further education sector has for too long been treated as a second-class service in post-16 education, and we will pressure the Scottish Government to put in place a comprehensive plan to increase spending. Since that too is now in the education secretary's brief, we will continue to press him to rethink the deeply flawed name person scheme before it is too late. We all have honest disagreements about the rights and wrongs of the scheme of where focus should lie and where resource should be targeted, but I simply warn the SNP that it is now becoming increasingly clear that the statutory scheme that it is proposing is unworkable. Does the First Minister really want to press ahead with the scheme, which is putting people off applying for primary school head teacher posts as the leader of Aberdeen Council says it is? That, according to many health visitors, will wreck the trust between them and the families they visit. There has lost the support of more than half the populace of this country. There is a growing consensus in this Parliament that if the policy is not revoked altogether, there should at least be a pause. I urge the SNP Government to consider that and to rethink this chaotic plan immediately. Opposition where necessary, proposing where required, is the strong opposition that these benches will offer over the coming five years and with a clear goal in mind to ensure that Scotland gets the better government that we deserve and which will make a lasting difference to our nation's future. The constitution will, I know, always be a constant driving force behind the SNP's agenda. I had hoped that we might be able to get through an entire sturgeon's speech without it being mentioned but, sadly, the First Minister proved me wrong once again. However, I would gently say this to the First Minister and to her whole team. With our schools in need of reform, with a healthcare system to protect, with an IT shambles to sort out and a new tax and welfare system to run, I do suggest respectfully to the SNP benches that there is more than enough to be getting on with. The Parliament that decided whether to not to leave the UK is over. In this Parliament, let's get on with leading within the UK instead. Today we have seen the SNP Government take their first steps towards setting out a programme for government for this session. As the Government sets out their priorities, I want to see a programme underlined by boldness and ambition. This is going to be a Scottish Parliament and a Scottish Government like none that we have seen before—more powerful, with reach into even more areas of our lives and the potential to meet the aspirations of all those across Scotland who want to build a fairer country for all. In this task, the people of Scotland have matched the Government with a Parliament that contains an opposition majority. When the First Minister sets her priorities, she can either look to the parties of the right or progressive parties of the left for support. So here are Labour's priorities. Protecting our environment and our climate and not opening Scotland up to fracking. Another fossil fuel that our environment cannot cope with and local people do not want. Preparing our NHS for the future and making sure that people can access services near where they live and when they need them, protecting local services from cutbacks. Restoring faith in our police service by investing in hard-working officers and staff, strengthening the relationship between the police and the communities that they serve. Giving everyone, regardless of their background or where in the country they live, access to Scotland's world-beating heritage, arts and culture. Protecting the BBC and building the infrastructure to grow our creative industries. Investment in creativity is investment in the future of our economy. My priority is to concentrate on the here and now, using the powers that we have instead of rerunning the arguments of the past. That is why those benches will continue to argue for investment in our public services, why we would continue to ask people to pay a little more so that we do not have to ask the poorest to cope with even greater cuts to the services that they rely on, and why we would ask the richest 1 per cent to pay their fair share so that we can educate our young people and prepare them for the future. I say to the chamber that that is not a tax grab, that is not the politics of envy in Ruth Davidson's words, that is a question of fairness, it is an economic necessity. Those are honest priorities that focus on the challenges that we face as a nation, and they are backed up by commitments that demonstrate that we know how to pay for them. We have said how we will pay for all our priorities, and as a responsible opposition, that is what people would expect from us. In a Parliament, 400 miles from here, the SNP MPs have tabled an amendment to the Queen's speech. From opposition there, they call for an end to austerity and for investment in public services. Meanwhile, SNP members sit on the Government benches in this Parliament with the power to act, the power to stop the cuts, to invest in education, and they refuse to do so. It is cynicism of the worst kind, it is a dereliction of the duty that they owe to some of the most disadvantaged people in this country, and these benches will not shy away from reminding the SNP of that each and every day. The question must also be asked as to why it has taken nine years for the SNP to make education their priority. There is no greater priority for Scotland and for this Parliament than education. Whether it is the pursuit of a fairer, more socially just Scotland, or a Scotland more at peace and at ease with itself, or a wealthier and more prosperous Scotland, then education is the path, the door and the key. I agree with the First Minister when she said that the future of this country does not lie with low-skilled, poorly paid jobs. It lies in the growth sectors such as engineering and computing with knowledge at their heart. It lies in the design, development and deployment of technologies in jobs and professions that we have not yet even thought of. It was David Bowie who said that tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming. Just before Christmas, I stepped into the future, also known as the Informatics Department at the University of Edinburgh. There, I met Baxter, a robot with the capacity and mobility to undertake many human tasks. Baxter and I built a battery pack by using a pair of glasses that, since my eye movement, Baxter could pass me tools and follow my instructions. Baxter represents both an opportunity and a threat, the boundless possibility of science combined with the loss of manual labour jobs. He represents a future where existing jobs are redundant and those set to replace them are still to be discovered. If we are not ready for this, we will be left behind. I am with the First Minister when she says that education is our top priority. As I said last week, I am pleased to see John Swinney in the critical role of education secretary. However, if the SNP accepts that investing in education, in skills, in science, in technology is the route to growing Scotland's economy, then John Swinney will need to be the first education secretary to convince the finance secretary not to cut the education budget. John Swinney's cuts removed more than 4,000 teachers from our schools and 152,000 students from our colleges. His were the financial constraints that university staff see on picket lines today and school teachers are balloting to strike very soon. Over recent years, education and training budgets have been cut by 10 per cent. The First Minister had a lot to say about education today, but she did not say that she was going to protect the education budget. That budget must be predicted and enhanced or we will indeed be left behind by other countries. There is no greater imperative for using the power of this Parliament to stop those cuts now and investing in taking this nation forward. It was JFK who said that our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource. In Scotland, we understood this atherism long before he coined it. We led the world in education and our ambition should be no less than to do so again. That will not be achieved with tinkering with the governance of schools nor by reintroducing a failed model of high stakes testing as the Tories propose. We will do it by beginning to increase teacher and nursery teacher numbers again by making student support fit for purpose in both higher education and further education and by closing the attainment gap between the richest and the rest wherever poorer children live or go to school. We will do it by recognising that we have some of the best trained, best qualified and most professional teachers anywhere in the world and we should be supporting them, not driving them to industrial action to get some sort of public hearing. We will do it by putting our colleges back where they belong at the centre of an education system designed to realise the potential of everyone and by everyone we mean senior school students, second chance learners, women returners or pretty much everyone who is going to find themselves retraining once or more than once during their working lifetime. We will do it by recognising that universities are about more than teaching undergraduates but are also the drivers of innovation, of successful competition in global markets and international partnership in the science that will shape this nation and our world. We can make a Scotland of that kind of imagination, innovation, exciting progressive vision driving forward or we can continue to cut back on education budgets, close down avenues of advancement for our young people, drive our teachers and lecturers to the despair of industrial action. We can disrupt our schools for years through regionalisation as this Government did to colleges, kid ourselves that is an efficiency drive and avoid facing up to what our schools, colleges and universities really need. Presiding Officer, over the next five years of this Parliament I look forward to working with the Government when we agree and encourage them in the right direction when we do not. All of us in this chamber share a responsibility for building the fairer and more decent Scotland that we all want to see and now every one of us holds even more power to do that in our own hands, so let's get to work. I thank Mr Jill and I call on Patrick Harvie to be followed by Willie Rennie, Mr Harvie. Thank you very much. I also thank the First Minister for the advance copy of her statement. I have said before that in this session of the Scottish Parliament with a minority Government, all political parties will need a positive agenda if we want to exercise influence in the Parliament, simply laying implacable demands or seeking to block action that I don't think will work. Greens will make positive proposals and I think that our track record in the previous session of minority government demonstrates that this approach can get results. The Scottish National Party may come to feel naturally entitled to propose its programme. However, without a majority, it will need to convince, it will need to compromise and it will need to be willing to give ground. I welcome some early signals that that approach is going to be taken today. In particular, the commitment to increase the carers allowance and to look at the green policy proposal of an additional young carers allowance. That's very welcome and I also welcome the wider comment that the First Minister made about social security. The chance, she said, to develop a social security system that respects the dignity of individuals as human beings. We must take every opportunity that we can in this Parliament to protect people from the UK Government's damaging and divisive approach to the welfare system. I am very much welcome that the First Minister seems minded in that direction. The green approach of being constructive and challenging will continue and there are certainly areas of agreement beyond that, not only on the provision for carers, but other aspects of the approach to supporting children. I love the baby box idea. I wish we'd put that in our manifesto. I have to be honest. I would like to see an assurance from the First Minister that that won't involve any hint of corporate sponsorship. I'm very pleased to see that the First Minister is nodding in immediate response to that. Also, the importantness needs to support maternity and early years allowances. That's another area and top up to child benefit. I hope is another area where we'll see some cross-party consensus as well as on childcare and I'm glad that there's recognition of the need for flexibility and quality of childcare, not just numbers of hours. On participatory budgeting, I'm very glad that the First Minister likes the idea of participatory budgeting. Green councillors have been champions of that at local level, but the idea of a nationally determined approach being imposed on all local councils does jar somewhat with the idea of participation.  Participatory budgeting is a good thing and we'll continue to back it, but it should be in the context of a more economically empowered local democracy where councils can make meaningful choices instead of just jumping through hoops set by national government. That's why we'll continue to make the case for the scrapping of the council tax and its replacement in this session of Parliament with a modern alternative and for more widely renewing local democracy in Scotland. There are other aspects of the statement that should get broad support consensus between the parties, commitment to the roll-out of broadband, increasing apprenticeships and overcoming gender inequality and a warm homes bill. Who isn't proposing a warm homes bill this year? Only a mere 13 years after Robin Harper first proposed one, I'm glad that it will finally happen, but it is going to have to come with the financial commitment to make it a reality. On educational attainment, I think that all parties have recognised that more can be achieved. However, the case for standardised testing, I don't think, has been fully made and we'll continue to question that choice of priorities. We'll welcome the opportunity to engage actively with the Government's educational agenda, but we do remain concerned that the need to ensure that education remains democratically accountable through our local authorities is something that needs to be defended. The commitment to maintaining free higher education with no front door or back door fees is something that the Greens welcome wholeheartedly. However, the notion that that policy comes at a cost to further education has persisted for too long. Both are vital to people, to communities and to the country as a whole. I deprecrate the presentation of that dichotomy by Ruth Davidson, but very clearly spending commitments are needed from the Scottish Government if we're going to protect both FE and HE. Finally, on making the case for independence, one that is clearly going to need a stronger and more pluralistic case than was seen in 2014, Greens look forward to continuing to play a constructive role. There will be areas of clear disagreement that require discussion between all political parties. The Scottish Government's proposal to halve and then scrap air passenger duty, for example, there is clear parliamentary opposition to that proposal, but I come back to this notion that parties will be successful by proposing constructive alternatives. I'm convinced that an alternative to the SNP's policy here, which meets an environmental test through reducing aviation emissions and a social justice test by not placing the burden only on those who fly once a year for an annual holiday, such an alternative can be developed. We'll seek the Government's agreement on that point of principle. For example, the idea of a frequent flyer levy is one that deserves examination. The opposition of some political parties to child protection legislation that Parliament passed in the last session has, in my view, been disgraceful. The misrepresentation of those policies as though they undermine human rights or the rights of families is disgraceful. However, I suspect that there is support for proper, robust, post-legislative scrutiny to ensure that the implementation can take place as intended. I hope that that's something where there will be agreement between Opposition and Government parties. Further, there will be areas where additional pressure is needed. Very clearly on the climate change targets, over the last few years, we've seen the Government use statistical anomalies to absolve themselves of responsibility for failing to meet the climate change targets. We're likely to see a further statistical anomaly make it easier for them to reach this year's climate change target, given changes to the European emissions trading scheme. I hope that they won't take a different approach to the role that statistical anomalies play this year than last year simply because it gives them a more convenient response. Clearly, there is a need for bolder action. I'm glad that the First Minister acknowledged that there is a need for bolder action if we're going to go further and meet those climate change targets for the longer term. Finally, there must be a case made for a shift toward a progressive, sustainable transport policy, something that has been lacking for far too long. As for the wider green case on a transition away from an economy desperately vulnerable to the oil and gas sector, yet more job losses announced today, do we really want Scotland to remain so vulnerable to our finite industry? Do we really want Scotland to remain vulnerable and overexposed to an industry that is doing so much damage to our world, one that clearly cannot last? How long should we remain so vulnerable? Five years, 10 years, 20 years? The investment in an alternative is urgent, and there is much that we agree with in the First Minister's statement about that need for innovation. I would say that, both in relation to the private sector, the public sector and the community sector, innovation is not only in new industries but also in new business models, such as greater reliance on employee ownership, on social enterprise and on mutuals. However, innovation, the building of a new sustainable economy, has to be seen as an alternative to simply pretending that business, as usual, in fossil fuels, can continue. Finally, Greens will continue to challenge the disconnect that exists between mindless measurements of economic growth and the notion of wellbeing, distribution and a healthy economy. Economies can grow while seeing social justice erode or be built up. Economies can grow while achieving environmental sustainability or continuing to deplete their finite natural resources. Growth is not the objective that the Government should continue to commit to, but the health and wellbeing of our economy and the sustainability of our environment. Greens will continue to make that case. I thank the First Minister for an advanced copy of her statement. I notice that Patrick Harvey is urgently desperately looking for the closure of the North Sea oil industry tomorrow. He cannot wait for five, ten years that he wants to get on with it now. He has not learned any lessons about his economic policies. What is clear is that we have a choice in the next five years—a big choice. We can seek to be aspirational, ambitious, looking to bold solutions for the future, or we can hunt for security and timidity. What we heard today from the First Minister was the latter. She is beginning to sound like Gordon Brown, the more that she speaks, the double and treble counting of all our sums of money. I am sure that she will add the letter S on to the end of everything, whether it is billions rather than billion. It will beat trebling the money that we have. It will not make it any more unless she pays for more. The reality is that she needs to focus on the big challenges that we face. She is also hunting for plans, advisers, councils of advisers, consultations, summits and anything but action to make a change for the future of our country. I think that we need to choose bold, ambitious options rather than the timidity that we have seen from the SNP's statement today. We also need to recognise that the SNP has lost its majority. It will not think it from the statement that was made. It is clear that we need to recognise that and that the SNP needs to reach out across the chamber. It will need more than a couple of references to policies from other parties. I am pleased that the SNP has agreed to have a dedicated mental health minister, but it will take more than that to convince us of the SNP's programme. I am pleased that they have adopted and have picked out some things from the Green manifesto and the Labour manifesto, but it will take more than that for the SNP to be ambitious for our country. I recognise that the SNP has lost its majority. I say simply to the Conservatives that I congratulate them for their growth in numbers, but they were not elected for being Conservatives. That is not why they were elected. They were elected for not being the SNP. That does therefore not mean that they have got an endorsement of every Conservative policy that has been proposed. That is quite clear. I want Scotland to be ambitious. I want our country to be ambitious for our future. Let us begin on an area where we can perhaps agree about the future. Let us look at mental health. Mental health services have diminished under the SNP over the last nine years. They have taken a step back. We used to have a world-leading mental health strategy. We do not even have one anymore.  We also have got so many people waiting for so long for urgent treatment. That is because the SNP has reduced the proportion of mental health spending as a proportion of NHS spending. The NHS has not put enough money into mental health services and that therefore needs to change. We need more than just the minister. We need the funds to go with it for emergency support in primary care, but also for child and adolescent mental health services. There are no beds north of Dundee for children and adolescents. There needs to be beds north of Dundee. The whole country does not just live in the central belt. There are people in far-flung parts of our country that deserve the support of mental health services. That is something that the SNP will be judged on in the next five years. The second area that it will be judged on is GPs. We did not get any reference at all to GPs in the statement earlier. She did not admit that we are 740 short by the end of the decade and, again, the reason for this is simple. Apart from the lack of planning from the SNP Government, the proportion of money that has been spent on GPs' services has fallen under the SNP, so let them recognise that too. They will be judged on that too. No mention of the intrusive super ID database. I wonder if that has been quietly ditched now that John Swinney has been moved to a new department. I think that we need some clarity as to whether they have plans for that for the future. There are areas of co-operation, but I sense from the reaction from those benches that they are not up for any co-operation. Let us focus on education. Nicola Sturgeon said that we must never talk down what we have. I celebrate what we have, but let us not be deluded about what we have. The OECD were clear. The OECD were clear. They are getting very animated, Presiding Officer. I wonder why that is. They are getting animated because we are getting to the heart of the problems of the SNP Government. Scotland used to have one of the best education systems in the world. Now it has been judged as just average. The party that claims to be Scotland's party has dragged down our education system to just average. It thinks by some regional boards for the running of education, for some national testing that will suddenly turn everything around. Unless you put the resources in, you will not make the difference. That is why the SNP needs to recognise that it will need more resources if we are going to get Scottish education back up to being the best in the world again. I have one practical suggestion that the SNP might want to look at with its new shiny council of international, not just national, but international education advisers. Will the SNP look at the proposals from upstart? Upstart is an organisation that is looking to raise the starting school age to seven. I think that that is something that has got merit. If the SNP is really looking to reach out and to reach for new opportunities to get our education system being the best again, it would look at that proposal. I was interested to see during the election that, after many months of opposition to the proposal of a pupil premium, it has been embraced by the SNP manifesto. I wonder what happened between Angela Constance uttering her opposition to the proposal and the SNP manifesto writers putting it down into print. However, there is no good just having the name of a pupil premium unless it is properly resourced. We do not need timid SNP amounts of funds for the pupil premium. We need proper resources, and my final plea is to the SNP to make sure that we implement the early years offer properly. We need to make sure that we do not have the record of the last few years, where only 7 per cent of two-year-olds get their nursery education that they were entitled to, when 27 per cent should have got it. Let us get on with the job of making sure that Scotland is bold and ambitious, with the range of policies. We will not make Scotland the best again with the timidity from the SNP. We need bold policies to make that difference. We now move to the open debate. Before I call Mr Crawford, I just remind members that this is a debate. Members are free to interject or intervene at any stage. You simply stand up and catch my eye, or the speaker's eye, to take your intervention. Mr Swinney should know that. This is also an unusual debate in that it runs over two days, but with many of the occasions over the next few days several of the new members will be making their first speeches. It has become custom over the last few years not to interject or intervene on first speeches. That is entirely up to members, but that has become custom. I would also make one final point in that, although this debate runs over two days, any member who has participated or has spoken in the debate is expected to be here for the closing remarks, which will be tomorrow afternoon. I call on Bruce Crawford to be followed by Maurice Golden. Thank you, Mr Crawford. Let me begin my personal congratulations to you and your new deputies in your new role. I know that you will do yourselves and this Parliament proud. I also want to extend my congratulations to all the new MSPs that have not yet had the opportunity to greet personally on your election to this place. However, we will not have to be elected to this Parliament to know that issues such as the health of our nation and the education of our young people are well fought over political battlegrounds. Some of that discourse has rightly been about holding the governments of the day to account, but much of it has all seen the issues of health and education weaponised for a narrow political gain to an unhelpful degree. That being said, I believe that we now have a window of opportunity to lay aside partisan political positioning and build a national consensus on matters of vital importance to the future of our nation. With a balanced Parliament, a third of the MSPs are new to this place and no national parliamentary elections in the offing for four years, which is an opportunity that we must grasp to build as much as consensus can be achieved. Of course, the balanced Parliament and minority Government will not in itself ensure that consensus will be reached. It will need to be worked at and worked at hard, without, of course, as the First Minister rightly said, allowing inertia to set in. It will require government that is prepared to seek common ground and build alliances both inside this place and outwith, but it will also require an opposition, prepared to be positive and responsible, and the knowledge that not only can they win the arguments, but they can also win the votes and meet real gains on behalf of the people they represent. Therefore, minority government should not become a test of a Government's ability to win votes, but a test on whether the Parliament can find agreement. I believe that our respective manifesto commitments, together with the many words spoken about the essential importance of education and national health service to our national life during the campaign, provides fertile ground on which to plant the seeds of consensus in order to grow agreement on the way forward. I know that, from an SNP Government perspective, the First Minister and her Government are ready and willing to try and find common ground on how best to transform our public services. During the cut and thrust of any campaign, issues are highlighted and their sharp focus on people's priorities and the message that they give us on the doorsteps. It is our job, as members of the Scottish Parliament, to bring those issues alive on behalf of the people that we represent in our respective constituencies. During my contribution today, I want to highlight just a couple of areas that people whom I met during the campaign would expect me to raise as part of this debate today. Let me begin with the national health service. My enduring memory of the campaign was that people recognised that all political parties were prepared to commit additional expenditure to their most cherished public service, albeit that some parties were prepared to commit more financial resources than others. However, to dwell on that would be to miss the point of what people were telling me. Yes, recognition that more money than ever before was to be spent, but a clear understanding also existed that we cannot go on delivering a level of service that people expect without fundamental change in both the way that the service is delivered and the structure of delivery. That is why I strongly support the aim in the SNP manifesto to review the number, structure and regulation of health boards and the relationship with local government. If we are going to secure the integrity of the national health service for the next decade and beyond, we must be courageous in our ambition to reduce backroom duplication and structural impediments to the provision of improved care. All parties in this chamber and each individual MSP share the ambition for Scotland to be one of the top performing countries in the world when it comes to education and the lifelong learning of our people, but to be able to achieve such an ambition will require a transformation not just in how we deliver childcare and education for our young people but also in how we do politics. If we are truly serious about this national ambition, we need to fully release the ideas, the energy and commitment of parents and professionals and others alike. That simply will not happen if education continues to be a bickering ground on politics focused on narrow part-party advantage, certainly. I thank the member for taking an intervention. I am interested in what he has just said about engagement with parents. Could he spell out in a little bit more detail exactly the plans that the SNP has to do with that? When I am talking about parents and that regard, what we cannot do, I would say to Elizabeth Smith, is involve ourselves in a bickering exercise over how we take forward education, otherwise we will lose those parents on the journey to make the improvements that we need to make in our country. For that reason, I was so pleased that the First Minister appointed John Swinney to be our Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills, with a remit that also includes co-ordination of public sector reform across Government. I have known John Swinney well for many years. I have worked closely with him in Government. He is the right person in the Government to do the most vital of jobs. I know that he will do what is right for the young people of Scotland, and I sincerely hope that Opposition spokespeople are capable of working constructively with him. Chances such as that do not come along very often. The people of Scotland will not forget nor forgive those who jeopardise our young people's future for political advantage. I have a lot more to say, but in conclusion, because I have only got six minutes, I look forward to the next five years, with our renewed belief and confidence, that if we work together, we can make Scotland stronger, and I commend the Government to you. Speeches should be up to six minutes, I call Maurice Golden, to be followed by Richard Leonard. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today I will bring the circular economy to the heart of the debate around the environment and climate change. I say this because I have a career defined by economics and the environment. My undergraduate degree was in economics and I have done a master's in environmental law. I have worked as part of this agenda internationally in Europe and in Australia, and I have also previously worked for Keep Scotland Beautiful, for Ofgem as well as for Zero Waste Scotland, and I refer members to the register of interests with respect to Zero Waste Scotland. Before I speak more about the circular economy, can I first say what an honour and privilege it is to represent the people of the west of Scotland, and I pledge to represent their views in Parliament? I would also like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Annabelle Nowe Baroness Goldie, and her support over the past 15 years in my quest for elected office. Certainly the highlight must be Golden, Goldie and Golden Eagle during the Glenrothys by-election, and that just goes to show that PR stunts weren't just the vestige of the last Scottish parliamentary campaign. Secondly, I would like to commend the First Minister on her decision to separate the ministries, which gives added impetus to the environmental agenda. Moreover, I would like to congratulate Rosanna Cunningham on her appointment as Cabinet Secretary. I know that she brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the role. Finally, can I recognise the contribution of Richard Lockhead for his stewardship of the environmental brief—not rural affairs—and the way in which Scotland has been positioned as a leader in environment and climate change? Unfortunately, those words aren't backed up by action. The Scottish Government has failed to meet its own climate change targets, it has failed to meet its own recycling rate targets and it has failed in terms of a co-ordinated approach with public sector bodies and agencies. This Parliament has the opportunity to be better, to be bolder and to deliver for Scotland. For the Scottish Conservatives, the circular economy is an economic system where products, materials and resources are used for as long as possible in order to extract the maximum value from them. In this way and in the longer term, it is a win for the environment, a win for consumers and a win for business. Globally, we are using one and a half times the amount of resources that we can make available, and this trend is set to increase as middle classes increase, as consumerism increases and as urbanisation increases. Scottish businesses will struggle with the long-term increase in the price of commodities, as well as price shocks, unless we can better control supply chains and recover materials. Globally and locally, we are seeing the impact of climate change in droughts, flooding and deforestation. We also have a global problem with mining, where to produce this 500g mobile phone, 75kg of waste is produced. There is so much more that we can do to realise the massive potential benefits for Scotland. Ellen MacArthur, who is a pioneer of the circular economy, developed the concept while she was sailing solo around the world in 72 days, beating Philius Fog and the world record at the same time. As part of that journey, she had to take everything that she required with her on that trip, and that got her thinking about applying that concept to nations. She subsequently set up the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and that same foundation has said that, by following circular economy policies, the value to Scotland could be £3 billion. Moreover, a recent report by Green Alliance has estimated that there are 20,000 new jobs that could be created by 2030 by following those policies. Those jobs are more sustainable, they help to tackle unemployment and they are resilient to any hollowing out of the labour market. Those jobs are reliant on recycling, on servitisation, on the selling of services rather than products, on remanufacturing, on reuse and on biorefining, and note no mention of incineration. I would like to close by a personal invitation to help with climate change. Firstly, you may not be aware, but my old adversary in Cunningham North, Kenneth Gibson MSP, cannot ride a bike. Therefore, he is forced to drive or take public transport. Having recently taught my daughter to ride a bike, I would like to extend the invitation to Kenneth, but I warn him no back chat. Secondly, Kenneth Gibson MSP, I would like to offer to car share with him from our homes in Eastwood, but I will ask him not to sing along to the radio. My final thought is that, for this Parliament, we can be bolder, we can be better in order to deliver a circular economy for Scotland. Richard Leonard, followed by Joan McAlpine. Deputy Presiding Officer, thank you for calling me. This is my maiden speech, so I want to begin by thanking the people of Central Scotland who have put their faith in me and kept their faith in my party in this month's election. I also want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of my predecessor Siobhan McMahon and Margaret McCulloch, who are no longer members of this Parliament, but who gave five years of distinguished public service to the people of Central Scotland. Deputy Presiding Officer, I have come here to try to make a change, because I think that this Parliament is in danger of becoming complacent and indifferent. Complacent and indifferent so that, when it was revealed last week that we now have over 10,000 people on the unemployment claimant count in Central Scotland alone, the former Cabinet Secretary thinks that it is good enough to issue a press release opining that and I quote, our employment rate is the second highest in the four nations. What good is that? What comfort is that to the 21,500 women and men in Central Scotland for that is the real number according to the Labour force survey who are now out of work. That is an unacceptable level of unemployment of unemployment, which isn't just an injustice for those 21,000 families facing grinding poverty and growing inequality and it leads to one in five children being born into poverty in Scotland today. It is a stain on our society which diminishes us all. When James Keir Hardy, who was born 160 years ago in the area and now represents in this Parliament, when Keir Hardy gave his maiden parliamentary speech, he also spoke of the unemployment question, which he described as and I quote, the moral degradation of enforced idleness. That is a phrase which I hope the new cabinet secretary for economy, jobs and fair work will remember, the moral degradation of enforced idleness. Keir Hardy also spoke in his maiden speech of industrial distress and the truth is that we still have industrial distress today. Just ask the 450 workers at Shell's Aberdeen headquarters who have served notice of redundancy this morning and I fear that this new Scottish Government like the old Scottish Government has no strategy for tackling it, no industrial policy, no manufacturing strategy, no joining together of public procurement with our industrial base, in short no economic plan. We have more than ever an economic system which works for those who own the wealth rather than for those who, through their hard work and endeavour, create the wealth or could create it given half the chance. Let me give you an example. Just this week, I visited the Tannow factory in Coatbridge. It has been there for 40 years. Yet a man called Uli Berringer, who bought it just one year ago, wants to close it down and move the work to Kidham Insta and to China. It is a modern factory with a skilled workforce making a world-class product. This is precisely why we need a Government which is prepared to act, not merely to send in a partnership action for continuing employment team, but a Government prepared to actively intervene on the side of those gallant working women and men who, with their union, are in the fight of their lives to keep the work and the jobs here. So I call this afternoon on the Scottish Government to act decisively with the owner of Tannow and to act now. That is why I will also make it my job to remind the new Cabinet Secretary for Economy, Jobs and Fair Work of this that democracy should be a central aim of economic policy 2 and that we should never accept the current levels of unemployment. That needs to be tackled with a renewed sense of urgency. Tinkering with those problems will not work. We need an industrial policy that relies on more than private enterprise and the free market. We need a vision of a renewed Scotland, reindustrialisation and economic modernisation, investment in education and, yes, the principled re-adoption of full employment as a goal of public policy. Here are two final figures. I would also like the First Minister and the new Cabinet Secretary to consider when they are reviewing their priorities. In central Scotland alone, over 29,500 households are on council house waiting lists. Many of them families live in cramped, unsuitable accommodation. How can we expect, and I quote, to drive forward improvements in educational outcomes when too many school-aged children are condemned to live like this? We should put people back to work by building council houses and homes for social rent again. We know as well that a half of our pensioners live in fuel poverty. A half of our pensioners cannot afford to keep warm, so let us start looking in this new Parliament at the new powers that we have to see what we can do to improve the income of our pensioners who have served this society well, but let us also start using the old powers to put people back to work on a warm homes programme. There are Democrats in this Parliament who answer to the call of the nationalist bugle, and there are rather more of them than there are of us. I am a democratic socialist. My world view is different. My priorities for Scotland are different. This Parliament will be a battle of those different ideas. It is a battle which the newly elected members from my party guided by our principles, determined by our values, with the renewed vision of the good society that we want to build. It is a battle that we are relishing. Joan McAlpine, followed by Gordon Lindhurst. Can I start by congratulating the previous two speakers, Richard Leonard and Maurice Golden, on their first speeches? I do not think that we are allowed to say made in speeches any more. Congratulations on your first speeches, and I look forward to hearing your future contributions to the chamber. The debate today is about how we can use the powers of this Parliament to improve the lives of everyone in the country. It is no secret that I do not think that those powers go far enough, but it is very clear that this Government and this First Minister is absolutely focused on delivering with those powers. There is a wealth of commitment and ambition here, and we have not even unveiled a programme for government yet. The early years and attainment programmes in particular are very ambitious, a £500 million investment to double early learning in this Parliament to 30 hours a week. It is important to say that, as well as benefiting parents and children, it is a huge infrastructure project that will benefit the economy as well and create jobs in every corner of Scotland. Along with the increased hours of childcare, 60 new childcare centres will be created, and more than 20,000 more qualified staff will be employed by 2021. In response to some comments about access to further education to poorer young people, I would also draw attention to this Government's commitment to extend educational maintenance allowance and remind our colleagues in the Conservative Benches that educational maintenance allowance has been abolished by the Conservatives in England, affecting the poorest children in society. The ambitious early years agenda is a great credit to the First Minister and to her Government. As is challenging the target of closing the attainment gap in education, some previous Governments have not managed to achieve this, which is not a new thing. I am particularly pleased that the manifesto has confirmed that money for schools will be allocated according to the number of children eligible for free school meals, not the index of multiple deprivation, which often does not work in rural areas. Finally, in response to on education, a number of other contributions from the opposition Benches have been a little bit too gloomy. We should remind ourselves that it was only two years ago that the Office of National Statistics published a report that showed us that Scotland is the best educated nation in the world, with 45 per cent of people aged 25 to 64 having a tertiary education, with many having degrees. I mentioned rural areas with regard to education. I represent one of those rural areas south of Scotland. I want to see that rural area benefiting from the Government's economic programme and infrastructure ambitions, which I am pleased to see the First Minister's outline today. It has been my view that one of the great achievements of SNP Governments between 2007 and 2016 has been that we have managed to invest record amounts in infrastructure despite extremely sharp cuts to our capital spending budget from London. In my own region, Dumfries and Galloway, there have been a number of important upgrades to roads, and we are building a new hospital. I am very pleased that there is more coming and that there is an ambition to do more. I was very pleased that, in April, our Deputy First Minister John Swinney committed to chair a transport summit for Dumfries and Galloway to raise the ambition to properly connect the region to the rest of Scotland. That was something that I had included in my manifesto for Dumfries. I hope now that Mr Swinney has moved into education if he is unable to chair that summit, that it can go ahead with Mr Yousaf in the chair. The town of Dumfries is the capital of the south of Scotland, but it does not have a dual road linking it to the motorway, and it does not have a direct rail connection that is electrified. In similarly, the A75, a euro route, is not dualled either in large stretches, and there is a high-profile campaign by local students in the region to upgrade it. I hope that, as part of our infrastructure investment over this Parliament, outlined by the First Minister, we will be able to address some of those long-standing issues that are affecting the south-west of Scotland that go far back beyond the SNP Government and, indeed, the Scottish Parliament. I am very pleased that the FFM has said that our Government will carry out a review of the roles, responsibilities and relationships of our Enterprise Development and Skills Agency. I believe that that offers a real opportunity to the south of Scotland, whereas the Scottish Enterprise Business Gateway model has not always worked as well as elsewhere. Both as a regional member in the constituency and as a member of the economy committee in the last session of Parliament, it was clear to me that the way that companies were selected for account management was not always working well in the south, because we did not have the size of companies that are required to qualify for the account management, and that means that they did not get the support. Although the Scottish Enterprise has, I know, made different internal decisions to try to address those problems, I think that in the course of the review that the First Minister talked about, we should look at ways of bringing in elements of Highland and Island Enterprise, which is a community development remit, into the highly rural south of Scotland, so that we can address some of the particular challenges that are facing the area. The First Minister made an extremely wide-ranging speech, and it is absolutely impossible to cover everything that she talked about, but what did strike me about it was the way that it contrasted with some other elements of people in the opposing benches that talk incessantly about constitutional matters. The First Minister allocated just less than a minute to constitutional matters. Nobody has the right to stop speech from people who are determining their own future, but we are focused on the powers that the Parliament has now, and I welcome the priorities that the First Minister has outlined. I have Gordon Lindhurst, followed by George Adam. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. When I was a boy in the distant 1970s, I remember how easy it was to contact people. My mother's parents who lived in Ayrshire did not have a telephone in those days, so when my mother wanted to speak to my gran and she would phone my gran's neighbour first and tell the neighbour when she would phone back. The neighbours were called the Browns, and either Mr or Mrs Brown would then cross the road to my gran's and tell them when my mother would be phoning. If it worked always well, if it didn't, the procedure just repeated itself until my mum got my gran at the neighbours. In those days of no internet, no emails, no mobile phones and, dare I say it, no Scottish Parliament, this was an accepted way of life. Inconceivable in modern Scotland. Scotland today benefits from the great technological advances of the preceding decades. This Parliament will be, we hope, an example of modern Scotland working at its best with the benefit of cutting edge technology. However, not only new institutions like this Parliament have benefited, the Faculty of Advocates, an ancient institution from which I come to this more modern institution, has adapted to make full use of modern technology. The National Library of Scotland has likewise done so, and I hope that it is not like a speech at a wedding where by naming two I offend any others by leaving them out, these are meant to simply be representatives of what we have in this great country of ours. We have progressed far, but there remains much, much more to be done. Broadband access is no longer a luxury, but an essential for any business organisation to operate effectively. For today's generation of young people, internet access is considered to be as essential to life as bread and water, or so they tell me. I am very pleased that this is recognised by the party to which I belong. I am pleased that the need for further progress in this area is considered a priority. I am not going to go into detail on our party policies in this area. I leave that to my colleagues who have been given that brief in the shadow cabinet. I say that I look forward along with my other colleagues to working together with those who have been appointed to the shadow cabinet by our leader. Of course, we hope that all MSPs will be working willing to work together for the good of Scotland. On a personal note, may I say that it was a woman who first encouraged me in my interest in politics? No First Minister, not you I'm afraid, but rather my own mother. Not to forget my father who interested me in literature in spite of its consequences for him. My mother, a good airshire woman, knew her burns and turned it to advantage when there were disagreements in the family household. Her most telling line in any disagreement with my father was the words, O add some power, the giftigias, to see your cells as others see us. With that, my father knew the argument was lost, shrugged his shoulders, and there we are, he would say. Sadly, neither of them are with us this side of heaven to hear me pay this glowing tribute to their, in my experience, virtually unique way of settling arguments. We all know how much things have changed since the new Scottish Parliament started in 1999. At the same time, people have not changed. The country that we have, the people that we represent, are in many ways the same. The constituency that I stood for in this election, Edinburgh Pentlands, is in many ways a diverse example, not just of Edinburgh and the Lothians, but of Scotland itself. From small communities like Kingsnow, with its own railway station, to world-class universities such as Harriet Watt, from local volunteers at the Galladea and Bellerno, to the Whale Arts Centre in Westerhales, the Churches of Fair Mile Head in Juniper Green, Draghorn Barracks, the shops of Collenton Village, Pentlands Community Centre in Oxgangs, to Currie Primary School, to mention but a few. All of these and many, many more make up who and what we are in Scotland and what we are about. No doubt, we are all glad to have the election campaign behind us, at least I think most of us are. We are also ready to get to work. But before leaving the election behind, I would like to thank all who worked so hard and voted to see myself and others elected. I am sure that all of us have memories that we take with us from the election campaign and from election day itself. One of mine from the election day is standing outside the polling station at St. Philan's Church in Buxton. A young family came out of the polling station, the two young boys in their school uniforms wanting to shake my hand as a candidate. Their parents had taken them with them to vote, to give them an opportunity to see democracy in action. I shook their hands and their little sister not wanting to be left out wanted to shake my hand too. She wanted to be part of it. This is what democracy is about, this is why we are here. We are here because we have been entrusted with taking Scotland forward. For the young people who were too young to vote to choose us, for their future and for those who did choose us, for their present, let us act together not just to make Scotland better, but to make it the best that it can be. George Adam, followed by Rhoda Grant. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First, I congratulate you and your colleagues and your elevation to the role that you currently have. I congratulate many of the first-time speakers here today. It was only five years ago when I was able to wax lyrically about Paisley on that one occasion. It is something that you can do and enjoy at that point. It is good to get back to business again, the important business, and to say that we have this new positivity, this new balance parliament, as my colleague Bruce Crawford said. I think that he is right when he says either wise words from Bruce Crawford when he said that we have to sit back and we have to look at the opportunity that we have here to work together to create the type of future that we all want to do. It is good to see that that positivity has been brought through by many of the Opposition members—well, a guy can actually dream, you know. Maybe it was not quite as positive as that, but we have to find this way of working, because that is what the people of Scotland have decided and that is what has been elected in this Parliament, and we have to make sure that we work together for that future. It hardly feels like five years since I was originally elected as Paisley's MSP, and the election night for me this year was not quite as nerve-racking as back in 2011, with a majority of 5,199 as opposed to 248. However, it is once again an honour to represent the great town of Paisley for another five years. Although challenging, it is a challenge that I look forward to, because you may or may not have noticed that I am extremely proud of my hometown and the people I represent. I may have mentioned that on more than one occasion in the past, but last term I had the honour to serve on the Education and Culture Committee, and it was during that term that the First Minister announced that the educational attainment gap and bridging the educational attainment gap was meant to be the work that we would be concentrating on. I think that it is something that we have to really take seriously and work with each other on, because for far too long, in constituencies such as Mines and others throughout the whole of Scotland, there has been a deciding factor on where you live and where you end up in your educational career. That cannot go on any longer. In my own area, Fergusley Park has areas of deprivation in it and Ralston in the east end, which is an affluent area. When you look at the differences in people's lives and their outcomes, when you see that difference, we should not be living in a country that no child should have to be decided in their future on the fact that they come from a certain age. We need to find a way why young men and young women end up disengaging with education as they hit teenage years and why they move away from that in their poorer areas. I think that the First Minister is correct when one of the solutions is rooted in the early years. I am pleased to hear the First Minister say today that ensuring equality of opportunity for young people starts well before the school years and extends from beyond the school gate. I think that that sums up this whole debate when we are talking about educational attainment, because before many children get to the school gate, their educational future has been decided because of their parents' situation and what has happened with them. We need to work with those communities and all our communities to ensure that we can actually show that way forward. It is welcomed that the Scottish Government intends to invest a further £750 million over the life of this Parliament to close the educational attainment gap, targeting where it is needed and controlled by headteachers, not administrators in other buildings far away from education. The targeting can come from the national improvement framework, which helps to find out where the support is needed, making sure that funding goes to the right place and making sure that the help is in the right place at the right time. Ensuring that we create a culture of learning that helps our children and young people, I can declare an interest at this point because I am already a grandparent with Daisy, my daughter is pregnant again. She is determined to make me have lots of grandchildren at a very young age, which seems like a good idea, but that is all in a similar boat, whether it is children or whether it is grandchildren. We all want the best for our children to ensure that they get that opportunity regardless of where they live. As I mentioned earlier, it does start in the early years, and the reason that the attainment starts with the youngest is that it is the highest quality of childcare. I am glad that we have appointed a minister whose whole point is to make sure that we deliver that level of childcare in Mark McDonald. Our youngest people can get the help that they need, but during this Parliament, the Government has already committed—we will commit—500 million pounds to nearly double early learning in childcare to 30 hours a week. That shows you that we are committed to making this investment. That is not the times of massive capital projects where you see a bridge over a stretch of water or a massive road. That is an infrastructure project that is making a difference in our communities and in the very heart of our communities—almost invisible, but it is making a massive difference to people's lives as well. In the coming five years, I am tasking myself to address the challenges of educational attainment. I will work with anyone who wants to do that as well, anyone who wants to take up the challenge and work towards that. First, I will continue to represent my constituents to the very best of my ability to make sure that they get the equality that they need in their lives. The other reason, Presiding Officer, is that Paisley is my home town, my place in the world and where my fellow buddies are from. I will work with everyone to make sure that we give them the equality in everything in life, and we can make this Parliament something that they will be proud of. Roger Grant, followed by Jenny Gilruth Thank you, Presiding Officer. I, too, congratulate new members for making their first speeches. Connectivity is not a luxury, it is a necessity. Scottish Labour led the charge for better connectivity, and we have continued to campaign for that over the last decade and to see that improvement through. Those campaigns have resulted in projects such as the Highlands and Islands programme being rolled out. That was supposed to deliver 84 per cent by the end of the current phase. If you contrast that with the First Minister's assertion that over 85 per cent of Scotland is currently covered, it shows you the difference between rural and urban coverage. The SNP has now been in power for nine years. It promised 95 per cent coverage by 2017, and there is not a hope of achieving that promise. If you break those figures down geographically, you see a huge disparity with many rural areas, much more or less likely to be connected and sometimes rates not even close to 50 per cent. The Scotland-wide figures hide the real rural unmet need for connectivity. What we need is a strong strategy to target those hard-to-reach areas. We know that BT, the preferred contractor, only operates through fibre and copper, but we need a mix of technologies to get to remote and rural communities. Some communities are doing that for themselves. Strong rural communities are racing funds, and in some cases they are even installing the technology themselves. That is positive, but what about the less active communities? Those outside towns or those who have no natural leaders will be left behind. We need to rethink how we deliver broadband in those areas. What about a social enterprise that is set up with intention to deliver in more remote regions? We need to make sure that BT, which has received huge amounts of public money, facilitates and supports those communities rather than putting barriers in their way. In the second phase of the broadband project that is being contracted, we need much more priority given to rural areas, areas of market failure. It is hard to understand why areas that will be served by the market receive Government funding while those who are not served by the market are forced to wait. How much, for example, will the Highlands and Islands get to continue the role out of broadband, as opposed to those in urban Scotland? Rural areas have most to gain by being connected in addressing population decline, about the economic benefits, the telehealth benefits, educational and social benefits. We have not started to reap the benefits of telehealth. Recently, I was told by an 80-year-old constituent that she paid £100 for a taxi to access a hospital appointment. It is too expensive to provide her with patient transport. Why on earth was she not offered a telehealth appointment instead, saving her and the health board a huge amount of money? Education also has much to gain. When I went to high school, I lived away from home. Unfortunately, fewer young people are now being asked to do that, but it is still the case in some places. Indeed, in other places, young people choose to travel to access education because the range of education on offer locally is not what they need for their future careers. Surely good broadband can allow children to study closer to home and access their classes online that are not available locally, giving them the same opportunity as others without forcing them away from their homes. Finally, without broadband, the rural economy suffers. How can people compete their cap forms online if they do not have access to broadband? That brings me to the absolute debacle of the cap payments. It is unbelievable that a Government, with plenty of notice, cannot set up a computer system that will work. Although Audit Scotland report highlighted the very worrying procurement procedures and conflicts, what is more worrying is what is going to happen to the farmers and crofters that are at the mercy of the system. They have been given loan payments whether they wanted them in some cases to tide them over, but what happens when their claims are not processed and in time to pay those loans off? Will they have to pay interest? Will they lose their subsidy if the EU penalises the Scottish Government? What budgets are going to be hit? What happens to those who, because of the place in which they are in, fall foul off state aid rules? All those questions need to be answered, as well as the central question, what on earth is the Government going to do to make the system work, what checks and balances are in place in the system to make it happen. I am grateful that the cabinet secretary took time this morning to speak to Opposition spokespeople, and we will work with them to sort out those problems, but they are very urgent and something has to happen. I am honoured to be given the brief in the Scottish Labour Party for the rural economy and connectivity. The health of the rural economy is intertwined with the progress of connectivity, and everything that we do depends on that being delivered very quickly. It is a privilege to speak today in this Scottish Government debate, indeed as the first of our new SNP MSPs to make a contribution to the chamber. Walking into Holyrood yesterday, a colleague joked to me that only the important MSPs would get to speak today. I will take that as a vote of confidence. As the new member for the Mid Fife and Glen North's constituency, I must begin by paying tribute to my predecessor, the right honourable Trisha Marwick. Trisha served my constituency with distinction, since she was first elected to Holyrood in 1999, when I was 15. It was in that same year that I sat in my modern studies class in Fife and watched the Parliament begin again. We visited Parliament in the General Assembly building later that year, and I remember asking my MSP, then Ian Smith, the member for North East Fife, how his party would get more women into politics. I cannot remember exactly what Ian Smith said, but I am quite sure that even he would not speak favourably of the absence of any women on the Liberal benches today. My passion to teach modern studies was invariably because of my own teachers. I know that Alex Cole-Hamilton and I share many of the same inspirations in this respect as we attended the same school. Mrs Brun, Mrs Brown and, as I am so much younger than Mr Cole-Hamilton, Ms Williamson, who is now the head teacher of Glen North's high school in my constituency. Those women taught me to think, they taught me to question and they all inspired me. Undoubtedly, without their input in my schooling, I would not be here today. When we talk about moving Scotland forward, it is clear to me that we have to begin with education. Indeed, to some extent, we are all linked by school. I know that I certainly am in this chamber. To Kezia Dugdale, who I know is not here at the moment, but anyway, whose father was the deputy head at Elgin High School when I was a probationer teacher and who once interviewed me for the school newspaper The Pigeon Post. To Alex Rowley, whose nephew I taught until very recently. And to the First Minister herself, in whose constituency my youngest sister teaches physics. None of us want to see a Scotland which creates an unequal playing field, whether that's on the golf course or in the boardroom, inequality which begins to emerge at the chalk face needs to be tackled head on. That's why I'm proud that this Government is committed to targeted funding which will get resources to the schools where it's needed most. Take more out primary school in my constituency, which has already benefited from this Government's attainment fund. Nearly £70,000 of Scottish Government funding is going directly into more out, benefiting the school and the local area. Under the SNP, the number of probationer teachers has increased every year since 2010. That's good, but we need to work with local councils to make sure that those teachers get jobs. Crucially, we need to make sure that we don't lose talent from the education system. I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. This time last year, as a principal teacher, I was involved in interviewing new teachers for Fife Council. If you're applying as a probationer to Fife Council, then you must complete a generic teaching application form. You're then interviewed and then you wait. You can wait up weeks to find out if you've been successful, and even after that time, you won't necessarily be told which school you're going to. You could be sent to Bilbaxter and Cooper, or to Occbutie and Glamnothys, or to Queen Anne in Dunfermlyn. That's how it is. I know that Fife Council are not alone in this approach nationally, but I've got to ask, who does this recruitment process best serve? This Government is committed to empowering local authorities. Head teachers will now have more power to direct resources where they see fit. £750 million is being invested to close the attainment gap. Fundamentally, this Government trusts Scotland's teachers to make the right decisions about how best to do so. And much like teaching a class, you also need to assess progress. That's why this Government has also invested in a national improvement framework to drive excellence and equality in every Scottish school. This Government is also committed to teacher education, ensuring that teachers across Scotland are given the right opportunities to develop professionally by funding the qualification for headship, for example. I've been lucky in my decade in education to have taught in three very different schools—a small community school, a large city centre school, a faith school. I was also fortunate in my time as a teacher to be seconded to education Scotland, supporting the new qualifications. In every school that I've visited or worked in, there has been a sense of community that celebrates success and works to raise ambition in our young people. It's clear that, to move Scotland forward, we need political consensus to do so on education. Curriculum for Excellence was the product of the previous Labour-Liberal Coalition. It arose out of the national debate on education when I was in my final year at school. Now, 14 years on, we all have a role to play in making sure that it works for this generation and the ones yet to come. Our new education secretary wants to listen to teachers. He wants to hear from parents, unions and local authorities. Most of all, John Swinney has made it clear that his mission is to close the attainment gap in Scottish education for every pupil, regardless of their background. I don't think that any of us could argue with that. I thank you for that. I call Bob Torris to be followed by Dean Lockhart.  Six minutes, please. I hand to our not-so-old new Presiding Officer in the chair. That's the first and last compliment that I'll probably give you, Presiding Officer. Can I also give a compliment to all the first-time speakers that have spoken so far? I think that single out Jenny Gilruth for what is an amazing maiden speech—we're not allowed to say that now, but it's an amazing first speech. As a foreign modern studies teacher myself, I would expect it to be of such a high standard, of course you understand. Ensuring that our children have the best start in life is something that we all want to see. I became a first-time dad in January this year, having a wee boy Cameron with my wife Janet. Ensuring that that best possible start in life for all our children has a very special meaning for myself and my wife more than ever before. I'm therefore delighted that our Scottish Government plans, by the end of this new Parliament, to double existing childcare provision for vulnerable two-year-olds and for all three and four-year-olds that are put in place. Although it will be challenging to deliver such a step change in pre-school childcare provision, the rewards will be significant, they will be great. I believe that, in just a few years' time, parents of pre-school children having provision of a nursery place for their kids for the same amount of hours as pre-school children currently receive today will just be considered the norm, and quite rightly so. The developmental, the health and the educational benefits for our children will be significant. The Scottish Government's priorities to tackle inequalities will also be well served by this policy. Nurturing the fundamental building blocks of childhood development at the earliest possible stage will surely help from the very earliest years to tackle the educational attainment gap, something across the chamber that we are united to achieve. I am particularly pleased that every nursery in our most deprived areas will, by 2018, have an access to an additional teacher or early years childcare graduate to help in that task. Together with a variety of initiatives, including the baby box for every new parent, the increase of 500 new health visitors and the new maternity in early years allowance, with grants targeted at children in our most deprived areas, I am hugely encouraged by our Scottish Government's early years strategy. It will, of course, help to deliver the Scottish Government's ambitions to target gender inequality also. Getting mums and hopefully increasingly dads back to the workforce after taking a clear break to bring up their children and not be disadvantaged just by the very fact that they have provided that vital service to society for the first year or so of a child's life is something that we should all put our elbow to the wheel and make sure that we deliver. It is how we deliver that and we might want to spend a little bit of time in relation to that. I am delighted that the First Minister said that it has to be flexible. The location of childcare establishments can be a barrier as much as an opportunity for some mums and dads, for some families. In the hours that they open in, half-day provision currently can also be a barrier to accessing provision as things currently stand. Of course, as we expand the amount of hours, those problems tend to melt away, so I am encouraged by that also. However, we have to think very carefully of where we locate new childcare establishments. We also have to think carefully about how we use partnership nurseries much more. Local authorities should be the key drivers to plan and deliver childcare provision, but sometimes where their bricks and mortar are just do not serve working parents. We have to look more carefully about what a local authority may provide a family as a reasonable offer as a childcare placement. I think that we have to start with a blank sheet of paper on how we develop that if we are really going to meet the needs of working families and other families back into employment. We also have to plan that childcare structure much more carefully. Right now, in my constituency of Glasgow, Maryhill and Springburn, there is much good work taking place. Let me single out, for example, the work in Royston at the moment where Rosemount Lifelong Learning provides a vital childcare opportunity. However, there is also a group called Royston Youth Action looking at the possibility of a sports hub and an attached childcare facility. If funds are going to be made available in the next few years, let's signpost them at the earliest opportunity so that we can do some very careful strategic planning about the best use of public funds to the biggest band for the buck and meet the needs of my constituents to deliver the childcare facilities that we need. There are opportunities there and we have to seize those opportunities. In the last minute or so that I have, I want to make two brief points away from childcare. I want to welcome the initiative in relation to the £100 million in cancer, early detection and treatment, but I also want to put on record what comes along with that is that we have to do far better in relation to palliative care. I know that the Scottish Government is getting a new 10-year strategy and framework for palliative care, so I hope that in the future when we talk about early intervention in relation to cancer and treatments, we will also talk about palliative care. I think that that is vital for a lot of families who have not been quite as fortunate in getting that early intervention. Finally, in Glasgow, there have been significant issues with young people, particularly as they move from nursery schools to primary schools, who have been diagnosed on the autistic spectrum, where they feel that there has been a forced mainstreaming of young people into education without the required supports. I know that the Scottish Government has signalled in the last session a review of the presumption of mainstream legislation, which dates back to 2005. It is very important to ensure that we serve all the young people in primary schools. A lot of schools in Glasgow do not have the required support to support those young people with additional support needs, or perhaps in some occasions they need to expand the specialist school estate. There are lots of opportunities for the future, Presiding Officer. We have lots of challenges, but together I know that the Scottish Government is working partnership to deliver for my constituents in Glasgow, Mary Helen Springburn and, indeed, right across Scotland. Thank you, Mr Doris. You did not take my one twenty-five seconds over. I made a note of it. As one of the new members of the chamber, it is a great privilege for me to give my first speech in the chamber and, at the same time, to provide some initial observations on my role as a shadow spokesperson for the economy jobs and fair work. In doing so, I would like to congratulate Keith Brown in being appointed as the Cabinet Secretary. I will pass that on when he is back in the chamber. I look forward to working with him and his team together in helping to strengthen the Scottish economy. For me personally, it is a great honour to have this economic role. I have spent the last 25 years in business. I have spent time in Hong Kong, Tokyo and a lot of times in Southeast Asia, including China and India, and I would like to bring some of that experience to the extent possible into the chamber and bring some new, fresh perspectives on economic policy that will hopefully work for the benefit of the Scottish economy and for Scottish business. Turning to the fifth session of the Scottish Parliament, I think that the general mood seems to be that there is a sense of change in the air. Not only do we have a chamber packed with new MSPs—I think that more than a third of us are new to the chamber—but we now have significant new powers under the Scotland act that we can use to set the future direction of Scotland's business and economy. That is something that we should all embrace. Given that, at the start of this term of Parliament, we should all have high ambitions about what we should try to achieve. From an economic perspective, I want to work with everyone in the chamber to make Scotland once again one of the most dynamic and enterprising economies in the world. We have a wealth of talent in this nation. We should aim high and we should look to reawaken the spirit of enterprise that this country has been renowned for across the world. It is interesting that, having spent so much time overseas, people still look at Scotland as being a country of enterprise and a country where we have been a leader in business. In recent months, I have had the pleasure of meeting a number of businesses across Scotland. Together with Ruth Davidson, I met a number of businesses at the Stirling University Innovation Park. It is a great example of where there are a number of new businesses in new areas of the economy—digital, IT companies, engineering and software development. It is a great example of how we can support, through places such as the innovation park, the creation of new and innovative businesses in Scotland. From an economic perspective, small and medium-sized businesses are a key part of the economy. There are over 360,000 small and medium-sized businesses in Scotland and they employ more than 1.2 million people. That is why it is a fundamental part of the Scottish Conservative policy to support the creation of more small businesses and to encourage the establishment of an export market for those small businesses. We need that from an economic perspective. The Scottish economy is underperforming compared with the rest of the UK. Unemployment in Scotland is 6.2 per cent compared with 5 per cent for the rest of the UK. Economic growth in Scotland is also lagging behind economic growth in the UK. With that background, the Scottish Conservative party has a number of policies that will support business and address the slowdown in the Scottish economy. Let me highlight a couple of those policies. We aim to propose reforming business rates in Scotland to provide for a more dynamic economy for small and medium-sized businesses. In the North Sea, we have seen real pressure in the North Sea and the UK Treasury has provided billions of pounds of investment in supporting the North Sea industry, which would only be possible as part of the union and as part of the fifth largest economy in the world and the fastest-growing economy in Europe. With 2.3 million new jobs created in the past six years, 300,000 of those are in Scotland. We will reverse the increase in the large business supplement that has damaged a number of smaller-sized businesses. We also strongly oppose any higher taxation in Scotland compared with the rest of the UK. That would just make Scotland uncompetitive, and it would scare off investment in Scotland and would result in us losing business and a skilled workforce. We will also address the skills shortages that are experienced by business. That is a constant feedback that we get from business that they do not have skills in key areas, and that is something that we will address. We will also increase the number of apprenticeships in Scotland. On that note, I am delighted to finalise and say that my nephew has just completed his apprenticeship. He is now an electrician and he is looking to start his own business, and that is a real-life example of where this party will help to increase apprenticeships and help young people to establish their own business. Thank you very much. We are tight for time and I do not want to see people slipping off the list, so I really ask people, even first-time speakers, to try to keep to the time. Rona Mackay, to be followed by Alec Rowley, Ms Mackay. I am deeply honoured to be standing here as the member of our Parliament for Strathkelvin and Bear Sten, an area in which I have happily lived for 20 years. I promise the voters during the election campaign that I would work as hard as I possibly could for them if I was elected and be a strong voice in Holyrood as their representative, and I have every intention of doing that. I also feel deeply honoured to have been given the chance to play a part in taking Scotland forward as part of our progressive Scottish Government and I will never take that privilege for granted. For me, taking Scotland forward means making life better for everyone regardless of their background or status. I am the granddaughter of an immigrant who came to Scotland from the south of Ireland when she was 18 and she could not read or write, but she was smart enough to know that to lift her children out of the poverty trap they had to get an education which would be their route to a better life. That is why I am proud that our Government has made educational attainment its defining mission, giving every child a better start in life, especially those living in the most deprived areas. An additional £750 million will go to those schools to raise attainment and go straight to head teachers. There will be attainment advisers in every local authority. In Strathkelvin and Bear Sten, of course, I am delighted that we have excellent high-performing schools. Of course we all know that it is not a level playing field and that some children are not able to fulfil their potential for a variety of reasons. I want every town and city in Scotland to have high-performing schools. But equality for children starts even before they get to school, as many have said today, and many of the poorest children are already behind before they start school, so over the next five years we will see the transformational increase in the provision of free early learning and childcare to give children the best start in life, which will help families and get more women back into work. There is no doubt that those progressive policies will take Scotland forward and reduce the attainment gap. The First Minister has spoken of reaching out across the political divide to achieve consensus on a range of issues that will take Scotland forward and make our country even better. That is why I am dismayed and disappointed when I hear of the Opposition party's intention to scrap two initiatives that attempt to do just that, namely the Offensive Behaviour Act and the Names Persons Act. The Names Persons Act, in particular, is legislation that I passionately support. Having sat in the children's panel in the east end of Glasgow for the last six years, I am appalled at the level of misinformation and scaremongering that has been disseminated by our opponents. The act is about child protection. It should not be portrayed as controversial or used as a political football.  They are the lucky ones. They are the ones who are in the system who are being cared for and protected. So many more children have been stripped through the net, and this act is an extra layer of protection for them. Children's charities across the border are in favour of it, so why do not those who are so against it listen to the people who are in the front line? Community empowerment is something else that I strongly believe in, and over the past two weeks I have been meeting community councils throughout the constituency. I have been amazed at the amount of work and time that people put in just to make their community better. I have met people who can only be described as local heroes without whom our society would only have function. That is why I am pleased that through the Community Empowerment Act we will recognise the great work that they do and give them a voice. Tonight, I have been asked to present certificates at a graduation ceremony for modern apprenticeships run by Tigers, whose head office is in Bishop Briggs in my constituency and who have just won growth business and overall business of the year at Eastern Bartonshire's annual business awards. I am thrilled to have been asked to do that because these are the young people that will take Scotland forward. They are our future, and I am proud that our Government has increased the number of modern apprenticeships and its building on progressive initiatives to get more young people into work. As a new MSP, I am becoming aware of the great trust that people have put in all of us to help them and the expectation on our shoulders to do that. I will take my lead from my former boss Gil Paterson, who could not have set a better example for me to follow. I thank the voters of Strathkelvin and Bearsden for putting their trust in me, and I will do my utmost every day not to let them down. I thank you very much. I thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I begin by congratulating you on your new post. You are going to the top of my list. I also congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches today. I am quite clear that where we can work together for the betterment of our country and for the people of our country, we should be able to do so. I think that that is what the people of Scotland expect, and it is also the right thing to do. I think that we have been talking this morning on a quite a few people this afternoon about teachers. I think that it is a listened and read through the First Minister's speech that if I were a teacher and this was an essay that was setting out some of the key priorities for Scotland, then I would be ticking most of the sentences as we were going through. The issue, I think, is not what has been set out here, but how it will be delivered and will it be delivered. I suppose that, therefore, the report cards, and we need to ensure that this Parliament holds the Government to account not in five years' time but on a regular basis to actually see what is being delivered. If I could turn to a few points, Bruce Crawford talked about earlier in his speech about building a national consensus. I believe that we need to build a national consensus in this country that sets out why austerity is so bad for this country and for the future of this country. We need to be clear that I certainly would not point the finger at the Government in Scotland for creating austerity. That is the responsibility of the Tories in London and it is the responsibility that they have driven forward based on ideology and on reducing the role of the state with no regard for the people that austerity will impact upon. Worse than that, what we have seen is that, over the past few years, austerity is failing and it is pulling Scotland back. Indeed, it is pulling the whole United Kingdom back. We should be building a consensus in Scotland that opposes austerity because it is bad for Scotland. However, we should also build a consensus in Scotland around the idea that we cannot have Scandinavian-type public services whilst paying American levels of taxation. If we want to have good public services in Scotland, then we need to have the investment in those services. If you take, for example, the First Minister talks about reform our public services to make them fit for the challenges of tomorrow. I would not be opposed to that. I believe that there is real opportunity to reform public services and to drive the economy forward. However, you will not reform public services if those reforms are driven by cuts. Yesterday, I talked with the leader of Fife Council, who said to me that this year it is looking at more than 400 job losses taken out of Fife Council. If you multiply that across local government, then this year alone there will be thousands of jobs taken out of local government. If you look at the picture of cuts and austerity being served up for the Tories in Westminster, then in years to come there will be even more job losses. At a time when unemployment in Scotland rose by 20,000 between December and February to stand at 171,000 people unemployed in Scotland. Youth unemployment has risen by up to 2.5 per cent since 2008. That is young people and their thousands being denied any opportunity and any prospects for the future. Over the past year, Scotland is the only country in the UK to have a fallen employment rate. We need to tackle unemployment and give people opportunity, but we will not do that by the levels of cuts that are taking place in our public sector across Scotland. If we look at, for example, the national health service, the First Minister acknowledges that we have a problem in terms of GPs. The Royal College of General Practitioners say that we have a crisis in terms of GPs moving forward in Scotland. My party wants to work with the Government to look at how we tackle that. This week, I met some retired GPs who told me that they would be, in the short term, able to start to try to fill some of those gaps, but the bureaucracy that is involved in them trying to come back into the service and provide service on a part-time basis is far too great. We need to tackle that. In Fife, where I live, the NHS Fife a few weeks ago announced £30 million out of its budget moving forward. How is it going to do that with our impact on already-pressured services that people just do not understand? The First Minister talked about the new health and social care partnerships. In Fife, the health and care partnership is starting with £11 million off a deficit, so we have major challenges in all those services that will need investment, yes, public sector reform, but will also need investment moving forward. I also just very briefly wanted to mention the housing proposals that are in here. No, I am very sorry, Mr Rowling, not even very briefly. I am sorry. I would just say that we need a national plan for housing. We have a housing crisis in Scotland, so let's work together to deliver those plans. Thank you. I am sorry. I am sorry that I am having to be a bit curt, but I do not want to say that people are waiting to speak to find that they do not get the opportunity. I am going to now call Graham Day to be followed by Annie Wells. Thank you. Five years ago, I rose to make my first speaking contribution in the last session of Parliament with a mixture of nerves, excitement and pride. Today, the nerves may have gone, but the pride and the excitement remains genuine excitement that what the next five years holds as this SNP Government seeks to move Scotland forward and pride in the First Minister's announcement today that the Government will explore the introduction of a young carers allowance. That represents the kind of Scotland that I want to see built. Presiding Officer, the cabinet secretary and the ministers are now in post, and very shortly, backbenchers like myself will find out their committee roles, allowing Parliament to get down to business. Some of that business will be a legacy from the last Parliament. The raft of secondary legislation for the land reform act will certainly occupy the time of members of the new committee charged with effective scrutiny of that. That is something person I welcome being involved in, although a role potentially made more challenging because of the impact of the recent election on the ranks of former Racky committee members. During the stage 3 debate on the then bill, I highlighted the loss through their opting to stand down of the vast experience of the land reform act process of Rob Gibson, Alex Ferguson and Dave Thompson. The outcome of the election has subsequently seen the Parliament deprived of the knowledge and commitment of Jim Hume and Sarah Boyack. As a former committee colleague of theirs, let me acknowledge the contribution of both to the Racky committee and the wider work of Parliament over an extended period. Of course, fresh talent and fresh perspective will be introduced to the successor committee, indeed all the committees of the Parliament. I am sure that that will be a benefit to this place. The contributions of Maurice Golden, Jenny Goruth and others today certainly suggest that that will be the case. Can I say that I am particularly enthused by the prospect of a new climate change bill being introduced and developed in the course of the session? That is an enthusiasm shared out there by environmental NGOs and stakeholders. Those of whom I have spoken to are delighted at the message that the appointment of a Cabinet Secretary with responsibility for climate change and environment sense that those are matters that the Scottish Government sees as a priority. I know of you, the new climate change bill, as a welcome opportunity to focus the whole Parliament on tackling climate change, to reset our ambitions and to embed carbon reduction progress across all sectors of the economy. If you do not mind, I want to make some progress. The 2009 act won Scotland and its Parliament many plaudits. Its ambitions and indeed progress and delivery of those ambitions continues to win admiration from around the globe. However, the fact is that, in part, admittedly, through baseline adjustments, we have missed those early targets, so a lease is required, especially as evidence of the developing nature of climate change grows even more obvious. I am looking to achieve a greenhouse gas emission reduction of at least 50 per cent, especially if we move to territorial emissions accounting by the end of this session, is an appropriate move. As the First Minister said, we must be bolder. The development of a new energy strategy alongside that is a further positive move, and I would encourage the Government to consider the content of RSPB's 2050 energy report, which I spoke at the launch of last night. It offers constructive evidence-based proposals for decarbonising our energy supply without harming wildlife. However, just as there is widespread support among stakeholders for both of those actions, so there is a desire for information on just how the climate change bill will interact with the development of RPP3. If memory serves, the UKCCC is due to provide advice on the targets for 2028 to 2032. Around October of this year, with development of RPP3 to follow thereafter, people are keen to go in on understanding of whether RPP3 and the planned climate change bill will be developed in parallel or dovetail with each other. They are looking for timescales. Whilst understanding fully that the Government has only just been re-elected, hopefully that information will be forthcoming to use that phrase so beloved of the Climate Change Act 2009, as soon as reasonably practical. Turning to entirely different matters, just as the appointment to the Cabinet of Rosanna Cunningham has met widespread approval among stakeholders, so has the Scottish Government's appointment of a dedicated minister for mental health in Maureen Watt. Equally welcome is the additional investment in this area, the move towards pregnant place and new 10-year plan for mental health provision and recruiting more community-based mental health workers. However, the impact of that messaging and commitment at Scottish Government level has to be felt on the ground. As the health ministers will be aware, there are moves by NHS Tayside to close one of its three inpatient units, which is causing considerable concern among service users and their families in Angus. Community-based day-patient provision across the county is a long way short of what it requires to be. I look forward to seeing the Scottish Government's leadership backed up as it is being by additional funding being followed and appropriate mental health services maintained, extended and delivered, not just in Angus but across wider Tayside. The planned increase in the number of modern apprenticeships is another very positive commitment by this Government, which will be a benefit to the part of the county that I am privileged to represent and others. However, I hope that, within that, we can see a recognition of the specific needs of rural businesses and young people from outwith urban conurbations. Particularly in more remote rural areas, it can be difficult to secure year-round employment with one employer. Youngsters seeking to remain in the areas that were born and raised in may well have to develop multiple skills across a range of areas. The Racky Committee in the last Parliament highlighted the need to take a more flexible approach with MAs, allowing participants to have more than one employer if that were required in rural settings. I hope to see that taking forward in the course of the new parliamentary session. It would be of real benefit to rural areas. In terms of facilitating our young people to carve out careers in rural settings, SO2 will be the delivery of 100 per cent access to superfast broadband and the commitment to delivering affordable homes in rural areas. Presiding Officer, the manifesto in which the SNP stood was a positive, exciting manifesto for every part of Scotland. That is why we were re-elected for a historic third time. Now I look forward to seeing us delivering that manifesto. I thank you, Mr D, and I call Annie Wells to be followed by Christina McKelvie, Ms Wells. Thank you, Presiding Officer. When I introduced Ruth at her manifesto launch in April, I said that it would be my dream to be sworn in as the MSP for my home city of Glasgow. Dreams come true and I am the proof of that. Until 5 May, the shock floor of Marks and Spencer's was my workplace rather than the floor of the chamber. My busiest day was Christmas Eve, but I suspect that the pre-Christmas rush in M&S is going to be more like a typical day in the Scottish Parliament. I know that it is customary in these speeches to pay tribute to my predecessors. As a regional list MSP, it is hard to pay tribute to any one individual. We have seen over the years, since this Parliament was formed, a broad spectrum of people and parties representing Glasgow from big characters in Labour and the SNP to representatives from the smaller parties such as the SNP, the Greens and even the Lib Dem. I am delighted to say that, for the first time, I am the second regional list MSP elected to serve my home city as a Scottish Conservative Unionist. Surely an indication of House Scotland and indeed Glasgow has changed this evolution and will change further in this new powerhouse Parliament. At this stage, I must point out that I am not, however, the first person in this chamber to cut their teeth in the Glasgow North East constituency and then go on to represent Glasgow region in this Parliament. I held the very skilled footsteps of our leader Ruth Davidson to follow in. Over the years, Glasgow has been sending MSPs to this Parliament much as changed in Scotland. We banned smoking in public places, brought about equal marriage—an issue very close to my heart—and we have hosted the successful Commonwealth Games. However, there are many things that have not changed for the better. Glasgow regions have a desire to take a different approach to tackle issues such as low-life expectancy, poor housing, stalling levels of social justice and the deep inequality between the best and lowest-performing state schools in Glasgow. People want an alternative Conservative agenda, which was demonstrated by the surge in support that my party received three weeks ago. The fact that I am joining this chamber by my talented and skilled colleague Adam Tomkins, who I look forward to working closely to address these problems and told the Scottish Government to account. It is also customary to comment at your constituency, and Glasgow is my home and it always has been. It is where I was born, bred, raised my son and have spent most of my adult life. It is a great honour to represent the city, which was the workhorse of the United Kingdom, a place of trade and merchants, inventors and scientists, poets and artists. It is often said that people make Glasgow, and it is true. I will work to make my home city stronger and I will support the policies that make the people powerful rather than the state. It is always my great privilege to represent the city of Glasgow as a Scottish Conservative. I have been a Conservative all my life, even though I only realised it recently. Like many, I have challenged the stereotypes of your working class in Glasgow region, therefore you must vote Labour. I look at other people who are coming forward to support and indeed join our party. I saw people who were just like me and were reflective of Scotland as a whole. It is a sign that nothing will be the same after this historic referendum, which confirms Scotland's place at the heart of our United Kingdom. I fully recognise that many people who voted for my party and helped to elect me did so after never voting Scottish Conservatives in the past or perhaps doing so for the first time in many years. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them. The election result that put us on this side of the chamber for the first time was not just an event that took place on May 5. It was the start of significant change in Scotland. It saw the coming together of people who want an alternative proposal to our health services, our colleges, our schools and our transport infrastructure. I am personally looking forward to getting on with the job in hand and scrutinising the SNP Government, especially on issues that matter most to me. I will look to stand up for hard-working people, strive to strengthen local communities and to address inequality wherever it may be found. Some of the issues that are particularly important to me include strength and community engagement and ensuring a greater degree of localised participation and decision making. We should aim to encourage as many people as we can from across all walks of life to get involved and make their community a better place. As I am sure is the case with many members, I can think of numerous third sector organisations in Glasgow that do fantastic work in their local communities, but more can be done to encourage and provide support for those organisations. As I alluded to earlier, much progress has been made in tackling inequalities. However, I am keenly aware that there are still hurdles to overcome. In particular, I believe that more action can be taken to address LGBT discrimination. For instance, I would like to see the school inspections specifically about school action on LGBT issues, as opposed to simply broader quality matters. I am also aware that teachers are often unsure about how to tackle homophobic and transphobic bullying, and I would therefore like to encourage the development of a toolkit in co-operation with the third sector that we could give the teachers the confidence to take the lead in this area. I was elected on a platform of providing a strong opposition, and that is what I endeavour to do over the next five years. By providing a strong opposition, I can play my part in building a stronger Glasgow and a stronger Scotland. I recognise that I was elected to serve the people of Glasgow rather than one party. Therefore, I look forward to working constructively with members from all parties, as we seek to make Glasgow the best city in the world to live and work. Glasgow regions were reaching out for change, and my own election was part of that, and I will not let you, your family or your community down. I thank you very much. I call Christina McKelvie to follow by Neil Findlay. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome you to your new chair, but I fear that it will not allow me to take your usual chair behind the First Minister's questions. I am sure that you will still have your towel down for that, Presiding Officer. I welcome you to your new place. I just say that you have mystified the new members. I welcome you to your new place, in that of Linda Fabiani and Ken Macintosh. I can also pay tribute to the new members who have spoken today. Their contributions have been very enlightening and there are lots of detail in there about what their aspirations are for this place. Standing together this place usually does make a difference, and I look forward to working with you over the next five years. We come to elections, we set out we're stall, we have our manifestos, we sell an ideal, a dream. More importantly, we give people some hope, hope for a better life, a better country to live in. My constituents in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse put that trust in me. So, whether you're a young person seeking enlightenment at university or college or a career through our 30,000 apprenticeships or just a chance to prove yourself in a job opportunity, this Government has that vision for you. If you're a elderly person who wants safety, security, liberation through public transport and personal independence to live at home and, most importantly, care in your twilight years, this Government has something for you. A person seeking employment or training or a business start-up support or rich relief to build and establish your existing business, we have something for you. Whether you're seeking that wee break, you know the one that will make things a bit easier, make us more successful, possibly in the form of a jobs grant, we have that for our 16 to 24-year-olds. If you're in a job and you're looking for a job, our people expect nothing less than the living wage, with good employer relations through our fair work agenda and certainly the right to be a member of a trade union unfettered by Tory regressive trade union laws. Like the parent, we're returning to work, the workplace, because we have provided childcare equivalent to a full school week and not just term time but throughout the summer as well. Or a maternity or early years grants and the much-lawded and life-saving baby box. Given our youngsters, the best start in life is a key priority of this Government. Or when it comes to healthcare, our people want a national health service that responds when they need it. Cradle to the grave, I believe a wise man once said. Our commitment to free prescriptions will ease many minds when challenged by its illness or disability. When faced with adversity in your health, like motor neuron disease, they look to us to provide care, support and they will look, like I will, for those PhD research posts that are promised in our manifesto to find a cure or at the very least some advancement in diagnosis, treatment and care. When we are battered about like debris in a tsunami of horrifying welfare reforms, we have promised the sanctuary of a social security system that cares not castigates, that respects not punishes and that operates with dignity and not disdain, not a system that asks a woman to prove her rape before awarding benefits for her child. If you are a victim of domestic abuse, this Government will strengthen that law and define that crime of domestic abuse is something that I look very much forward to. Our peoples will look for support in our unsung heroes, our carers by increasing carers allowance to that of jobseekers allowance. You have no idea of the impact that that will have on the people that I know in the South Lanarkshire carers network and how hard they work to ensure that their carers are looked after. Or maybe protecting disability benefits from means testing, not penalising parents whose child is in hospital by abolishing the 84-day rule and giving peace of mind by awarding those children eligible for DLA that benefit until they are 18 years of age. The pressure taken off families with just those few measures will be enormous. Or what about equality, Presiding Officer? Equality should be the watermark of this place of our Parliament. Whether it is your gender, your disability, your sexuality, your race or your faith, that is why we need to work together to ensure that our hard fought for human rights act is not repealed. Presiding Officer, we were built bridges and roads not just over our rivers and through and connecting our towns, and I have to make special mention of the works going on at the Wraith interchange. However, those roads and bridges will be built into and over our communities by empowering our people to take control of their local communities, to enable them to build capacity and resilience into the places where they live, work and play. People put faith and trust in us. Yes, we very privileged 129 members of our Parliament. They expect us to live up to that faith and repay that trust. My friends in the Scottish Government have a very difficult task, and I know that my colleagues across the chamber and other parties have a difficult task in opposition to that, but we have been given that task by the people of Scotland. It is a task that I believe that we can all step