a long time ago. That concludes general questions. We turn now to First Minister's questions. Question 1 from Ruth Davidson. Thank you. To ask the First Minister what engagement she has planned for the rest of the day. First minister? Engagement is to take forward the Government's programme for Scotland. Ruth Davidson. Presiding Officer, last week the killer of Glasgow school girl Paige Daugherty had four years taken off his sentence. In a case that has prompted grave concern, his lawyers successfully argued that he f Banana shouldn't have his time in jail reduced simply on the grounds that he wasn't as bad a killer as others. In response, the justice for page group said this. There are no words to describe how we feel, it is heartbreaking and it serves no justice to Paige and her family. Does the First Minister agree with me that it is entirely unacceptable that, less than a year after watching their daughter's killer get locked up, families should then go through the ordeal of seeing that murderous sentence reduced cydnog i chi gwrs nid yn bellach, gan gwybod, sgwp, nid gwybod i chi ddweud i chi pwg, ddoi ni'n mynd o gydig i ddisgu i ddoutei yn Trefforddiol. Mi hi'n gwybod i chi gwybod i chi ddweud i chiodd hynny i gŷ, aEEI i chi ddweud yn ddechrau a ddych chi i lawer o gynnwys, ac maen nhw yn rhoi ddweud yn ddweud o'r cwmdolansau I have no difficulty whatsoever in understanding the sentiments that were expressed by the justice for page campaign. If I had been a relative of page docrity, I would have felt exactly the same given the events that Ruth Davidson has outlined. The only other thing I would say is that being absolutely frank about this, this is the more difficult thing for me to say. This was a decision of an independent judge in a court of law. We have an independent judiciary in this country, as well as being First Minister. I'm a human being and there are many occasions where I look at decisions of courts and wish that different decisions had been reached. It may well be that this is one such case, but I respect the independence of the judiciary. I don't think anybody in this chamber, I would include Ruth Davidson in this, would expect me to interfere with those decisions. What I can do today is say absolutely that I understand and sympathise with the pain and grief that this family is experiencing. Ruth Davidson. First Minister for her response, and she is absolutely right to point out that we should all uphold the independence of the judiciary. It is also right to say that it is Parliament that makes the law and it is Government that sets the framework under which our judges operate. We on those benches say that there must be change because a system that cuts a child's murderous sentence because he deems not as bad as others is rightly seen by most members of the public as a disgrace. Right now, the Scottish Sentencing Council is examining guidelines on sentencing and we believe that appeals against sentences should be a key element of its work. Does the First Minister? I think the Sentencing Council should consider any matter that it thinks appropriate and I would certainly be absolutely happy for it to consider the issue that Ruth Davidson has just put forward. I absolutely accept, readily accept that while we have an independent judiciary and courts must be allowed to take their decisions, the framework and the context for those decisions is very often set by Parliament. No matter what context and framework Parliament sets on any of those issues, we will still have instances where decisions by courts are decisions that many people feel are the wrong decisions. That is in the very nature of an independent judiciary. I am very clear that where there is evidence that the law has to be changed or action has to be taken, that is something that this Government and this Parliament should reflect on very seriously. That includes the experience of the particular tragic case that we are talking about today. That indeed is why we have the Sentencing Council and it is right and proper that it looks at those matters in depth. If it brings forward proposals for change to the Government, then I can give an assurance today that the Government will seriously consider any such proposals and if we think it appropriate bring forward proposals to this Parliament for change and reform. Ruth Davidson. Again, I thank the First Minister for her response but the problem here is not just the Paged Orty case, it is that there are too many families who have seen their loved ones killed who simply do not feel that they are getting the justice that they deserve. Who feel that the dice is loaded against them and in favour of the criminals. We have long campaigned on these benches for whole life sentences to be introduced in Scotland so that judges could, if they wish, sentence the very worst criminals to spend the rest of their lives in jail. The Scottish Government has said in the past that it might consider such a move. What is its view now? We will always consider proposals for change that we think are evidence based and again this is not always a popular thing to say that are consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights which I think is an important protection for our justice system generally. So we will continue to consider openly and frankly any changes that are considered to be appropriate. I think that while I generally agree with the thrust of Ruth Davidson's question, I do not think that it is fair necessarily to go from one case where I think we are all agreed in our characterisation of it to say that families routinely are let down by the justice system. We have, I think, a strong and well performing justice system. We have and of course one serious violent crime is one too many and I want to stress that before I say the next thing. We nevertheless have crime rates that have fallen over the last number of years, thanks in part to the good work of our police across the country. But none of that takes away from the pain and anguish felt by a family that has experienced what Paige Docherty's family has experienced. So I think that it is important, camly and rationally, for government and for Parliament to consider periodically whether the rules we have in place are the right rules or whether they require to be changed and I can give an assurance on the part of the Government today that we will always seek to do that. I simply inject the caveat, I guess, which I don't think anybody is disagreeing with, that no matter what sentencing rules we have in place, no matter what frameworks we have in place, because we have rightly and properly an independent judicial system in this country, there will always be decisions taken by judges that some of us think are the wrong decisions. That is in the nature of the independence of the judiciary. But all of that said, we will continue to be open minded to proposals that come forward for reform and change in this area as in any other area of our justice system. Ruth Davidson. I thank the First Minister for that reply, but it is one that we have heard several times before from this Government. As it stands, our judges do not have the tool of a whole life tariff at their disposal and we say that they shoot. Presiding Officer, we can sit in this Parliament and we can wring our hands and we can express outrage every time something like this happens or we can do something about it and I want to do something about it. If the Scottish Government won't act, then I can say today that the Scottish Conservatives will do so by pushing ahead with a member's bill making the case for the introduction of whole life sentencing in Scotland. We need to stand up for families who see sentences for murder cut less than a year after they have been handed down. We should change the law so that families like Page Doherty's feel that the law is tipping back in their favour and that the worst criminals are kept off our streets forever. We have waited too long, Presiding Officer. Isn't it time that we all acted? I do think that it is important that we continue to look at these issues rationally. I think that Ruth Davidson is right to raise these issues. We have introduced over the course of the period that we have been in government a whole range of reforms to our justice system. I said earlier on that the fallen crime is partly in large part due to the good work of our police officers but we are seeing increases in the rates of conviction for some offences and increases in the length of prison sentences for many offences as well. Much of that is down to the reforms that have been introduced to our justice system over the period of the last decade. We will continue to look with an open mind at proposals that are brought forward for further reform. I simply say this and I do not want to comment too much more on the individual case of Page Doherty. I think that we are all agreed on the tragic nature of that case. If the system that Ruth Davidson is advocating for today had been in place—this is an important point in this or in any other case—there is no guarantee that that is the sentence that a particular judge would have opted for. I am simply making the point that even if we had—I am not saying that it is absolutely the wrong thing to be considering—we will always have cases, no matter the sentencing options that judges have, where a judge makes a decision that some people do not think is correct. Therefore, whoever happens to be occupying the opposition benches would perhaps be raising those issues with whoever happens to be the First Minister or the Government of the time. I do think that those are serious issues and I would not underestimate or underplay the importance of them at all. However, let us consider those things in the proper, rational way that all Parliament should. This Parliament has done on many occasions in terms of past reforms to our justice system. I give a commitment to Ruth Davidson and to the Parliament today that the Government will continue to reflect and to reflect further in light of this exchange at First Minister's Questions about what further changes we might think are appropriate. Parliament should act in the way that it thinks best in light of all of the circumstances. Kezia Dugdale. To ask the First Minister what engagement she has planned for the rest of the week. First Minister. Engagements to take forward the Government's programme for Scotland. Kezia Dugdale. Presiding Officer, earlier this week, the Greater Glasgow Health Board voted to close the children's ward at the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisley. This was a decision that was opposed by Labour MSPs, Labour councillors and thousands of families and patients. It was the wrong decision. Last year, during the live election TV debates, the First Minister was asked if this ward would close. She promised a voter that there are no proposals to close that particular ward. But there were proposals to close that ward, so why did she offer that false hope to thousands of families on live TV? First Minister. This is an important and serious issue, but I thought that Kezia Dugdale should have been able to spot the contradiction in her own question. This is a proposal that was voted on by Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board this week. By definition, therefore, that proposal did not exist in a form that the Scottish Government could consider last year before the Scottish election. Labour has raised this as an important issue. It may want to listen to the answer that I am about to give. This is an important issue. The health board has voted to put this proposal. Let's remember, and I am not prejudging the Scottish Government's view of this, because we now have to go through a formal process of our own. However, this is a proposal in the context of there being a new children's hospital in the south of Glasgow just a few miles away from the Royal Alexandra hospital. However, the health board has now voted on this proposal. This is something that Labour called for, so I think that they might welcome it. It has been designated major service change. What that means is that it now comes to the Scottish Government, to the health secretary, for proper consideration and for decision. That is why it would be wrong for me to go any further in prejudging that today. However, whatever I say is this, that will be given full and proper consideration. I would just ask Kezia Dugdale to reflect perhaps on this point. As health secretary, unlike my Labour predecessors as health secretary, I never shied away from overturning decisions of health boards when I considered that they were not in the interests of patients. Monklin's accident emergency is one example. AIR accident emergency is another example. Some of the proposed closures for the Vale of Leven hospital for example. We will continue to put the interests of patients first, because that is what the people of Scotland and indeed Renfrewshire would expect us to do. Kezia Dugdale. Where the First Minister was right in that answer is that the ultimate decision to close this ward at the RIH now rests with her Government and hears her chance to do the right thing, but I am not holding my breath given the two local SNP politicians couldn't even be bothered to respond to the public consultation. The supposed poster girl of the anti-aesthetic movement, Mary Black, couldn't be bothered and neither could George Adam. The SNP MSP for Paisley found the time to oppose the closure of a local McDonald's but not a children's ward in his own constituency. Perhaps the First Minister will listen to Gordon Clark. He is the man who asked her that question about the RIH on live TV and he is here in the public gallery today. The First Minister promised Gordon that there were no plans to close that children's ward. So what does she have to say to him now? Will she step in and keep her word and save this word in this hospital? I repeat what I said previously. There were no proposals. There are now proposals. Because of the decision taken by the health secretary, those proposals have been designated major service change so they will come to the health secretary for decisions. I would have thought that that is something that Labour would have welcomed, given that it is something that they called for. In respect of the local MP and MSP, they have recognised that this is a decision for the health secretary so they have got on with the job of contacting the health secretary. They have invited the health secretary to go to Renfrewshire to meet with patients before she takes a decision and the health secretary will agree to do that. That is the right and proper way to proceed. The health secretary will listen not just to the views of the health board, the health secretary will listen to the views of patients and we will come to a decision that is in the interests of patients. That is in stark contrast to the way in which previous Labour Governments used to operate when it came to health service changes because they used to ignore the voice of patients and simply rubber stamp the health board proposals to close accident emergency units and other services across the country. That Government, as it has always done, will act in the best interests of patients, whether in Renfrewshire or anywhere else in Scotland. Currently, parents of six children do not want to hear a 10-year-old story about keeping A&E's open. They want to know about the future of this ward. The cuts in Paisley are not the only cuts that are planned to NHS services in Scotland. The maternity units at the Vale of Leven and the Inverclad Royal are now also under threat. This week, we learned that the SNP plans to remove all intensive care cuts from nine neonatal units across Scotland. Because of the SNP's failure to properly staff our NHS, children's health services are in crisis. Parents want to know when will the SNP Government fix the mess that is made of the NHS. First Minister, when will you get on the job of this? There are some people who do not want to hear about a decision taken almost 10 years ago to save accident emergency services at Ayr in Monklands. Those people are sitting on the Labour benches because they wanted to close them. The people who do want to hear about that are the hundreds of thousands of patients who have been treated in those accident emergency units in the 10 years since. In terms of some of the other issues that Kezia Dugdale has raised, the midwife-led maternity units at Inverclad and at the Vale of Leven, I assume that she knows that the health board is reconsidering its proposals around that in light of the recommendations of the maternity and neonatal review. That is right and proper. In terms of what Kezia Dugdale has just said about neonatal services, I think that what she has just said is absolutely and utterly disgraceful. What we have is an expert-led report setting out what we need to do to enhance a small number of neonatal units to make them specialist enough to care for the sickest babies in our country. Kezia Dugdale is somehow suggesting that, as First Minister and as a health secretary, we should ignore the opinions of those experts when it comes to the care of the sickest babies in our country. That is utterly disgraceful and Kezia Dugdale and Labour should be deeply ashamed of themselves. In terms of the children's ward at the RAH, to get back to that important— First Minister, just one second. Will members please refrain from interrupting? Members feel strongly, but if you wish to speak, stand up and make a point, but do not speak from a sedentary position. I think that it is very clear in this chamber that Labour is not particularly interested in patients. It is all about political point-scoring for Labour in this chamber. Let me get back to the RAH. I will say this to the parent in the gallery and to every other parent in Renfrewshire who is understandably concerned about this issue. That this Government will listen carefully not just to the views of a health board but will listen carefully to the views of parents and other patients and we will come to a decision rightly and properly based on what we think is in the best interests of patients. That is the right way for our responsible Government to proceed and that is perhaps one of the reasons why we are in government and Labour is not even the opposition any longer but in a dismal third place. I have two constituency supplementaries. The first is from Jamie Greene. Mr Brian Jay from Solcoats in North Ayrshire set up and runs his own wedding car company, which he invested £60,000 in, something that we should all applaud in this chamber. The company was going well until the Scottish Government introduced the Air Weapons and Licensing Act, which is now forcing additional licensing charges on private operators across Scotland. Mr Jay has now ceased to take bookings and he is worried that he might have to close shop indefinitely. I have written to the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and the Economy, Jobs and Work and Fair Work asking for clarification on this matter. Can I ask the First Minister? You can heckle but Mr Jay is sitting at home watching this and is interested in hearing what the First Minister has to say. Can I ask the First Minister what guidance she can offer Mr Jay and many other like him across Scotland and what action the Government is taking to mitigate the negative effect that this act is having on their industry and when it will undertake the assessments that they were promised? Of course, the Air Weapons and Licensing Act was introduced with the interest of public safety firmly at heart. I may be corrected if I am wrong here but I think that the Conservatives voted for the bill before this Parliament and I think that they were right to do so because of the motivation of this piece of legislation. It is vital that we strike the right balance between the legislation doing what it is intended to do without putting unnecessary burdens on businesses or on anybody else. The member rightly says that he is right to do this and has written to the relevant cabinet secretaries and will make sure that those cabinet secretaries reply to his correspondence. The Justice Secretary would be happy to meet the business concern to discuss his particular circumstances and whether or not there is anything further that can be done to mitigate the impact on the business. I would hope that everybody across the chamber would support the motivations and provisions of this particular piece of legislation because it is about protecting public safety. I am not expecting reverential silence but just as there shouldn't be sort of chunkering when the First Minister is trying to answer questions, there shouldn't be similarly many interventions when someone is trying to ask a question. Kenneth Gibson. The First Minister, both the Claysdale bank and the TSB have each announced the closure of two branches in my constituency. B will lose two of its three banks as a result. Dorae will lose the last bank in the town. It's TSB and Solcoats its Claysdale branch. While banking is relevant to Westminster, what representations is the Scottish Government making to those banks to encourage them to maintain a high street presence in our towns and mitigate against any closures? The First Minister. The decision to close these branches, while obviously a commercial decision, is obviously very disappointing for the customers, for local communities and all of the staff who are affected by these decisions. While we recognise the branch activity in footfall may be declining due to the increasing number of bank transactions that are conducted online, the Scottish Government in the contact that we have with banks would urge them to consider branch closures always as a last resort to consult with staff and communities before making any final decision. Often bank branches, the same can be said of post offices, are very important not just in terms of the business that they do but for the footfall they bring then to other businesses. Many customers of course continue to have a strong preference or a need for face-to-face provision of banking services and I would expect banks to explore all practical options to boost branch footfall and to retain banking services in local communities wherever it is viable for them to do so. To ask the First Minister what issues will be discussed at the next meeting of the Cabinet. First Minister. Matters of importance to people of Scotland. For years, the SNP Government has instructed the chief constables of Scotland to employ 1,000 extra officers. Is that policy still in force? First Minister. We have 1,000 extra officers at the moment and in terms of our budget for the coming year I would expect that to continue but Willie Rennie will be aware from discussions in this chamber before indeed I think from the SNP's manifesto at the last election that it's important going forward that we not only maintain an appropriate level of front-line police officers but we recognise the changing pattern of crime, the increase in cyber crime for example and ensure that the police have the right mix of specialist staff, the right crime fighting force on the front line in our communities. Police officers will always be the most important part of that. We have 1,000 more police officers and we inherited. I would always expect us to have way more police officers than we inherited and we will continue to work with Police Scotland to ensure that that balance and that mix is the right one. Of course, as the member will be aware, Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority will shortly publish their consultation on their strategy for the next period and that's one that I hope Parliament and every member of Parliament would positively engage with. Willie Rennie. For years, the First Minister has spoken about little else but the 1,000 extra officers indeed she's done it again just now. Order. Let Mr Rennie ask a question please. I would have thought that a change of policy, like seems to be happening now, would have merited some kind of formal announcement from the Government before now. Civilians are important, not least for cyber crime and call centres like Bilston Glen, yet 2,000 valuable civilian posts have been lost in recent years. That is very sensitive and important as we will soon find out what were the contributory factors to the events following the end line crash. So this policy really does matter. Communities deserve a clear explanation of Government policy. Next week, the chief constable will publish the policing plan for the next 10 years. What limits on officers has he been given by the First Minister? First, I thank Willie Rennie for the confirmation that I talk about little else other than matters like justice and health and education because it gives lie to the accusation that I'm always talking about other matters. In terms of major policy changes, if and when there are major policy changes on this or any other matter, the Government will make that clear to Parliament. I set out earlier on for Willie Rennie what our manifesto for the election said last year, and that was very open about what we considered to be the challenges of policing going forward, giving the changing patterns of crime and how we had to work with the police service to make sure that they are equipped to deal with that. Maintaining appropriate numbers of police officers, as we have done in each and every one of the 10 years that we have been in office, continues to be extremely important. What the chief constable and the Scottish Police Authority will do next week is set out their draft strategy for consultation. It is important that they consult widely on that in terms of the challenges and opportunities that they face in the period ahead. I will not pre-empt what they will say about that in the course of next week. Of course, they will continue to work with and be guided by Government in terms of the decisions that they take as a result of that. The final thing that I would say is that, perhaps unlike police forces in other parts of the UK, we have increased funding for our front-line police services for the coming year. There was an increase in funding both in terms of the revenue for Police Scotland, which we have pledged to protect in real terms over this Parliament, but also additional reform funding, and indeed at stage 1 of the draft budget, Derek Mackay announced even more funding. We are putting the resources into our police service, and we then require to work with the chief constable, his colleagues and the Scottish Police Authority to make sure that those resources are supporting a police force that is equipped to deal with crime, not just now but in the years to come. One other supplementary at this stage from Rhoda Grant. Thank you, Presiding Officer. This Parliament voted on 7 December that seafarers employed by Marine Scotland should receive a fair pay settlement rather than the pay cut that they now face. Despite that, Marine Scotland has refused to increase its pay offer and put employees in unequal footing with other seafarers employed by the Scottish Government. Will the First Minister now make sure that Marine Scotland respect the decision of this Parliament? The First Minister knows and shares the commitment of this Government to fair pay. I will certainly, after this session of First Minister's Questions today, look into this matter and respond to her in writing. I believe that it is important that the public sector leads by examples on issues of fair pay. There will always be issues involved in negotiations that it would not be appropriate for the Government to get involved in while negotiations are under way, but I undertake to look into this matter and return to the member as soon as possible. To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government's response is to the report by Macmillan Cancer Support, which highlights the disparity in cancer survival rates between people from more and less deprived areas. The last 10 years have seen an overall reduction in the cancer mortality rate of 11 per cent. Our £100 million cancer strategy sets out a range of ambitions and actions aimed at improving survival for people affected by cancer, and this includes targeted efforts to increase screening uptake in deprived areas to help improve cancer health inequalities. In particular, our detect cancer early programme focuses on reducing inequalities in breast, bowel and lung cancer, and we expect to see continued improvements in survival. The most recent staging data shows that the largest increase in early diagnosis, stage 1 diagnosis of 16.3 per cent in the three tumour groups that I have mentioned, has been in the most deprived areas of the country. There is still more work to do, but that data suggests that we are starting to see signs of a narrowing of that inequality gap. John Mason. I welcome the fact that the First Minister mentions detection, diagnosis and screening, because clearly that is a huge part of the problem, it seems to me. Many especially, and I have to confess that I am one of them, have been traditionally reluctant to engage with some of the screening and early diagnosis with the health services. Does she feel that it is just a question of money here, or are we needing to somehow change underlying attitudes? First Minister. First, we have to make sure that we resource screening programmes and prevention strategies, so that the detect cancer early programme that was introduced when I was health secretary is backed by £41 million of resource. John Mason is right to say that it is not just about resources, it is about changing attitudes, in some respects about changing cultures. It is about encouraging people not to be frightened to come forward for early examination if they are worried about any symptoms, because all of the evidence shows that the earlier cancer is diagnosed, the better the chance of survival. That is why we put such emphasis on early detection, on our screening programmes, on encouraging people to come forward. That is the whole ethos and motivation of the detect cancer early initiative. I would say that that is often particularly important when it comes to men who suspect that they may have early symptoms of cancer. We know that men generalising here are often less likely to come forward and to see a doctor, so it is really important that we stress the messages of taking advice if you have any concerns, because that will help to ensure that we detect cancer early. If we do that, we will save more lives in the process. I think that we have all got a part to play in getting those messages across. The research found that you are up to 98 per cent more likely to die from cancer if you are from the most deprived compared to the least deprived area. Other reports have found that, over the last 10 years of this Government, inequalities have widened in terms of health, attainment and wealth. Does the First Minister agree that the greatest fight against cancer deprivation has been led by Glasgow City Council and Macmillan through the improving the cancer journey programme? Would she agree to work closely with Glasgow City Council and Macmillan to replicate the programme and roll it out right across Scotland? We already work closely with organisations such as Macmillan and partner with them in a range of different areas. Similarly, we work with councils, Glasgow City Council and others, to mutually support our work in those areas. It is absolutely right that we continue to do so. I do not think that any of us should underestimate the challenges that are associated here, nor should any of us of whatever party somehow pretend that those are issues that have just arisen under one particular party. The issues of inequalities and including health inequalities are long-standing and deep-rooted. In Scotland, we have seen some statistics this week around heart disease and stroke, for example, but even in our most deprived areas—this is something that is important to note—in our most deprived areas, mortality rates for heart disease have decreased by 31 per cent and by stroke for 24 per cent over the past period. We are making progress in some of those areas, but we need to do more. Going back to cancer, we know that prevention, first and foremost, is important, which is why this Government has put such an emphasis in some respects, picking up in the work of the last Labour Government around reducing smoking rates, trying to deal with the problems of alcohol misuse, because we know that those things are drivers of some kinds of cancer. Our screening programmes are so important, and the detect cancer early programme is encouraging people to come forward. The cancer tumour types that the programme focuses on are responsible for around half of all cancers in Scotland. I hope that people across the chamber would agree that there is a great deal of work being done here. Some of it is about proper resourcing—much of it is about ensuring proper resourcing—but much of it is about changing long-held attitudes and patterns of behaviour, and that is something where all of us should come together and make sure that we play our part in achieving. Moris Gould To ask the First Minister in light of the verdict whether the Scottish Government considers that it was worthwhile for it to spend £136,000 on legal fees in the recent Brexit case at the Supreme Court. First Minister I not only think that it was worthwhile for the Scottish Government to be represented in that case, I think that it was absolutely essential for the Scottish Government to be represented. Interestingly, just as an aside, he might want to say to his Tory colleagues in Westminster that it is about time they told us how much they spent defending a case that they always knew they were going to lose. The Supreme Court case was necessary to force the UK Government to enact the legislation that is currently going through the Westminster Parliament before the triggering of article 50. The case also raised fundamental issues about the rights of people in Scotland and the role of this Parliament. I think that it was absolutely right that this Government, such as the Government in Wales, defended our interests and what was the most important constitutional law case for many, many years. Moris Gould That is like a game of jeopardy. The answer is Brexit, Westminster and the Tories. What is the question? It is any question that you ask this First Minister. My point was about the use of taxpayers' cash, because this SNP Government will literally say and do anything that they think furthers their goal of tearing our union apart. They do not care how much Scottish taxpayers' money they squander in the process. This £136,000 is one example of the tens of millions of pounds that this SNP Government spends on policy decisions that they believe will promote separation, such as the unpopular plans to dismantle the British transport police. No one should be under any illusions. This SNP Government puts its own interests first, not Scotland. With this SNP Government taking ever more money out of the pockets of hard-working Scots, will the First Minister cut out the needless spend on furthering their unwanted campaign for independence and instead focus on growing our economy? Moris Gould Firstly, in the spirit of finding some consensus, because as members know, that is always what I like to do, I agree with Moris Gould and Brexit is like a game of jeopardy. Unfortunately, the Tories are playing it at the expense of the rest of us and it is completely unacceptable. It seems to be a point that has completely escaped Moris Gould, but there would have been no case at the Supreme Court for the Scottish Government to have to intervene in if the Tories hadn't insisted on appealing this case every step of the way to the Supreme Court, even though everybody knew they were going to lose. Perhaps it might be more appropriate for Moris Gould, as I said earlier, to ask his colleagues, Tory colleagues at Westminster, how much they spent on this case, because so far they are refusing to say what the legal costs of this case have been for the Westminster Government. My final point is this. It is another reason—it is not the main reason—but it is another reason why it was worthwhile to take that case, because it exposed—something did it not. It exposed the fact that when the Tories told us that they were going to embed the soul convention in statute and that this was going to make so much of a difference, they were misleading people. That promise was exposed in this case as being utterly meaningless. Maybe just another little benefit of this case is that we exposed the fact that the promises that the Tories make to Scotland can never, ever be trusted. That's quite enough. Question 6, Mark Griffin. Thank you, Presiding Officer. We got here eventually to ask the First Minister for what reason the wealth gap between rich and poor in Scotland is widening. The Scottish Government is committed to creating a fairer and more equal Scotland. We are already taking a range of action to tackle inequalities, including, of course, introducing a child poverty bill and encouraging employers to pay the real living wage. While all categories of household wealth have increased, the main reason that the wealth gap in Scotland between rich and poor has widened slightly is down to the increase in private pension wealth. Private pension wealth is not distributed equally, and as it increased by 39 per cent between 2012 and 2014, the wealth gap has also increased. However, we remain committed to doing everything that we can within our powers and our resources to tackle poverty and to close the inequality gap. Mark Griffin. First Minister, wealth has become more concentrated under this Government and the wealthiest 1 per cent alone owns more than the wealth of the bottom 50 per cent. However, this week, the Government chose not to use the power to tax that wealthiest 1 per cent, a 50p top rate. The Government's newest adviser backs a 20 per cent top-up in universal credit, so when will the Government make the choice to use the new powers over tax and social security to reverse those appalling trends? First Minister. Firstly, on social security, the Minister for Social Security made a statement in this very chamber just yesterday, updating Parliament on the work that we are doing to create a new social security agency to update on our response to the consultation around social security. We have already set out a range of ways in which we are going to use the new powers to try to tackle poverty and disadvantage among those who depend on the social security system. One thing, of course, we are going to do is abolish the bedroom tax. We already mitigate the bedroom tax, but we want to abolish it at source. Right now, we have a situation in which the UK Government may effectively enforce its benefit cap so that what we give with one hand would take away with the other. I hope that everybody in this chamber, including the Tories, will get behind us when we say to them that that is completely unacceptable. We will debate this afternoon the final stage of the budget, a budget that strikes the right balance between raising extra revenue through tax, not giving higher-rate taxpayers a tax cut and investing £900 million more in our front-line public services. Those who might vote against that budget this afternoon will be voting against that £900 million additional spending on our public services. My final point is this. Mark Griffin talks about raising taxes on the wealthiest. I would encourage everybody who is interested in this to read Labour's amendment to the budget this afternoon, because that is not actually what it talks about. It talks about raising tax by 1 per cent for everybody earning over £11,500 a year. That is Labour's tax policy, not tackling austerity but transferring austerity to the burden to the shoulders of the lowest paid. The difference between Mark Griffin and I is that I do not think that somebody earning £11,500 qualifies as wealthy. To ask the First Minister what discussions have been held over the future of broadcasting in Scotland. The Scottish Government has had several discussions regarding the future of broadcasting in Scotland through the active involvement in the recent renewal of the BBC charter. The culture secretary met the BBC director-general just this morning to discuss yesterday's announcements regarding the BBC's plans for Scotland, including the welcome announcement of a new channel for Scotland from autumn of next year. Prior to this, she met him on 29 February 18 August and 17 October 2016 to reiterate the Scottish Government's position on how the BBC can deliver better outcomes for audiences and for Scotland's creative sector. Emma Harper I welcome the announcement yesterday as a step in the right direction and heard a bit more detail from the BBC at committee this morning. Does the First Minister agree with me that, while it is a good start, it must be properly resourced and that the BBC should be working towards a far fairer share of the licence fee raised in Scotland, being invested here as those plans would leave us lagging behind Wales and Northern Ireland in that respect? Emma Harper Emma Harper is absolutely right about that. I would hope that it is something that we could all unite behind. I unequivocally welcome the announcement yesterday of a BBC Scotland channel. The SNP first called for a separate channel in April 2006, when we made a contribution to the last charter renewal process. Everybody would agree that it is vital that it is properly resourced. I welcome the commitments that were made yesterday to resourcing. I particularly welcome the commitments that were made yesterday to the creation of an additional 80 journalist jobs in Scotland. At a difficult time for journalists and for the media generally, that is an announcement that all of us should welcome. We have to be firm in saying to the BBC that this channel has to be properly resourced on an on-going basis. Interestingly, when the Scottish Broadcasting Commission reported in 2009, it estimated back then that a similar channel would cost around £75 million a year, which is double than the £30 million that was announced yesterday. Of course, yesterday's announcement increased the percentage of the licence fee raised in Scotland that is spent in Scotland. Again, I absolutely welcome that. As Emma Harper says, that still leaves that percentage lower than the corresponding percentages in Wales in Northern Ireland. I absolutely think that the announcements yesterday by the BBC were welcome progress. I thank Lord Hall for making those announcements yesterday. I think that all of us now have an interest in making sure that the announcements turn into a successful reality. For the channel to be successful, with high-quality content, as we have the talent to produce, it necessitates good, solid funding for the long-term. Let's all of us unite in making sure that the BBC delivers on that commitment. Jackson Carlaw. Can I join the First Minister in that welcome? We heard from Lord Hall this morning that 60 per cent of the programming on the new channel will be new commissioning. Together with the initiative of BBC Studios, the question for the Scottish Government is whether we are structured in Scotland to ensure that we can take advantage of that opportunity. There is a widespread belief that Northern Ireland's screen and the way that the devolved administration is working in partnership with the development agency there is allowing the independent sector to actually take advantage of the opportunity created, whereas the relationship between the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise and the creative Scotland here is not facilitating that. At the same time, there are real concerns over studio capacity here in Scotland, with major studios now being built and commissioned elsewhere in the UK. Will the First Minister ensure that ministers as well take advantage of the opportunity that this now creates to ensure that our creative sector in Scotland is able to take advantage of the opportunity that has now been presented? I agree with much of the thrust of that question. I genuinely am glad to hear the Tories welcome what was announced yesterday. When I called for a separate Scottish channel back in 2015 at the Edinburgh television festival, Liz Smith said that I was just showing how out of touch I was and that she did not want to see millions of pounds of licence fee funds diverted to pay for it. I am glad to hear the conversion of the Scottish Tories. On to the wider issue that Jackson Carlaw has rightly raised. He will be aware of the changes that we are making and the funding that has been made available in Scotland to support the screen and the film sector. It is absolutely vital that we make sure that that sector is equipped. The relationships, both with Creative Scotland and with the wider public sector and with Scottish Enterprise, are the right ones to encourage continued growth. We are seeing lots of success in the film sector, for example, right now. I understand that I have many constituency interests who talk to me about this regularly, the view within the film sector that we need additional studio space. I do not want to say too much more about that just now because some of the proposals are currently subject to planning decisions. I certainly agree that I want to see the provision of studio space in the future. We have stayed-aid issues in terms of our ability to directly fund that. However, we have a success story of the Scottish economy that we now have the opportunity to turn into an even bigger success story and that is why I think that we should be enthusiastic and welcome it with both hands. Thank you very much. That concludes First Minister's questions. We now move on to members' business in the name of Lewis MacDonald. We will just take a few moments to change seats.


You would have noticed that in recent times amongst women, in general, there has been a huge sense of assertion, in the sense, they are wanting to come out of their earlier bonds, out of their earlier spaces, and they are trying to occupy different spaces now. I mean, just look at the sports field, for example. I mean, you have women winning what, in tennis, in wrestling, in weightlifting. I mean, these are areas which were assumed to be so highly male dominated, but now you find that women are doing so well, and they are proving that they can come into any of these fields, and they can do equally, if not better, than men. And it is not only this, it is not only sports or in areas of this sort, in education also, there have been women in much larger numbers, who are aspiring, coming into higher education in your fields, in communication, etcetera. But also, if you look at the grand panchayats, if you look at the municipalities, there has been an impact of this, you know, 33 percent, and now 50 percent reservation for women in the local bodies and in the grand panchayats. So, you find large numbers of women have come into the political system at those levels, at the levels where they can take decisions about area level problems, civic issues, things that they are familiar with. So, they are making those decisions. They are willing to come in over there, they are willing to fight the elections and they are doing it. So, you have a large mass of women trying to come into these public spaces as individuals, you know, as people on their own. Now, this somewhere, you have a larger social system, which does not favor this shift, which in fact, does not favor, I think, is putting it mildly. What we have noted is that there is a hostility, and this hostility comes from a mindset, which sees women in that ancient patriarchal mold, you know, what we call Manuwadi. Now, this Manuwadi ideology continues to try all the time to entrap women within those existing norms of the household, the family, you have to have four children. You look at some of the baians that are being given by some of the, you know, the Hindutva leaders here and there, the RSS leaders, I mean, they are not shy of putting it or saying it, though it is against our constitution, it is against our democratic rights, they are not bothered. They are saying women have to be here, they have to bear so many children and so on and so forth, and they are trying to create this conservatism as a system, which will continue to shape the women's future. Now, this is something that the women are resisting. These women were coming out they are, so there is a backlash, there is a conservative backlash. So, what we are trying to show is that this conservative backlash is taking place a, because these Hindutva forces are on the rise and are trying to reimpose these kind of regressive ideas and ideologies Manuwadi, and which is highly, you know, Brahminical also, caste, if you look at how they have treated the Dalits, how they look at the Dalits, etcetera, that also feeds into this. And second most dangerous aspect of this is that they are being often upheld by the state, because the BJP in power represents these forces, rather than the forces of, you know, democratic rights, equality and your constitutional spaces, your fundamental freedoms, it does not represent that, it represents this. So, therefore, today we find that the state when it has to step in, the law even when it has to step in, it should step in in a particular way, it is stepping in to push the legal framework backwards. So, that is something we want to bring out and this is where, you know, how section 498A is sought to be weakened, how PCPNDT act in a new situation, where, you know, you have a booming economy apparently, but economic growth has not meant equal growth, it has not meant equitable growth, it has not meant that your poor are less poor or that the backward are less backward and that they are moving in towards a more, you know, greater share of what is being produced or that is not what it means. They are being further pushed back as a result of these kind of development paradigm, you know, the neoliberal development paradigm, what we say, because of that the women who are aspiring and are moving into this actually become more vulnerable to the sort of crimes and assaults that are occurring. So, you have a double attack on them, a twin barreled attack. So, today we are at this point of time, where women will are resisting, will have to resist, will have to come out stronger and will have to understand what is happening in this current framework and that is why, we feel that, you know, a political, a social and economic and a cultural change, all these changes will have to occur simultaneously. You have to see the whole paradigm, that is why this convention is of particular importance, the AIDWA national convention is of particular relevance. So, one area would be, we have to safeguard the rights that we have won in legal terms, that is, safeguard the laws. These laws, see, if you remember, even after this whole episode of, you know, this Nirbhaj, Bhaia Khan in Delhi, after that, that rape law was amended and in that, as Varma had said that marital rape should be included, but today what do you see? You see actually that there is a pullback, there is no effort to ensure this is brought in, rather there is an effort to show that this will destroy the family. What?  So, we are saying safeguard the rights that have been won already and move for more gender just laws. So, this is one very important area. We need those laws, they themselves may not bring about total change, but the laws are part and parcel of the larger system where equity and equality can be assured to all including women. One thing is that against this regressive kind of ideology, where you find that women are being encapsulated again, captured again, trying to be, you know, can you thrust a genie back into a bottle? I doubt very much, but they are trying very hard and they are using all kinds of diversionary tactics. They will, you know, they will pretend something, this is because of this, but till now blaming the victim for the crime against her is across board happening. In many of the states, those who speak tomorrow, they will be mentioning how, you know, they have been attacked and assaulted and they themselves have been blamed for the crime that has been committed against them. So, this regressive ideology, Manuwadi ideology, this is something we will take on and in one step towards that we hope that we can have some kind of social reform campaign, may be, you know, use Phule, Savitribha Phule's birthday comes up early Jan.  That is very much necessary and both amongst women and amongst men, because we feel that it is not only a women's issue, it is an issue for all sections including for men. Social reform cannot happen only for women, right? It has to happen for men and women, social reform. And third thing is our basic democratic rights enshrined in the constitution. That is a basic fundamental fight and we join hands. We want to ensure that women will be part of this huge battle that I am sure is going to take place against the assault on democratic rights, intolerance, the way in which history gets rewritten, the way in which Padmavati gets targeted in the most absurd of manners, diverting attention from the Kisan struggles, diverting attention from the workers' struggles, these kind of things, against all these to uphold what we fought and got in the constitution. What Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar said in those days, that we have put it down in writing, but for it to turn into reality, you will need a much greater and much wider struggle. So, I think that is the struggle that we are getting ready for and this national convention will give a call for that and we hope we will progress towards that goal.


Hello everyone, I'm Jessica Gramp, Moodle Community Manager and I'm here today with Anna Kraser, the Education Advisor in Moodle Academy and I'm going to talk about the future of Moodle Academy. Can everyone hear me okay up the back? Yeah, hopefully. So the Moodle Academy team has doubled in size recently since the beginning of this year. You may recognise some familiar faces, one of whom you just saw at the front of the room, Mary Cooch, our Education Manager. And Aurelie Soulière, some of you may know, she started with us yesterday as our Community Engagement Lead. So please say hi if you see her wandering around the conference, but it's her second day so she's keen to hear your thoughts and she'll start working with the community soon. Richard Lafroy is speaking directly after us, he's our learning and media technologist and Raje Neel is our developer educator so he's been creating our developer courses on Moodle Academy. We have a new start from about a month ago, Federico Astorga, our UX designer and of course Sandra Matz who has been working hard to put this moot on for us today. So if you see any of us around the conference please come say hi. So what is Moodle Academy? Moodle Academy is the learning hub for the global Moodle community. It's here to help you learn everything about online education within Moodle and it's a community of practice for professional development, interaction and best practice where users can get a Moodle badge or certificate to help grow in their career as an educator, administrator, developer or designer. Moodle Academy launched in mid-August 2021 and it offers free self-paced courses to help everyone make the most out of Moodle and e-learning. You can get to Moodle Academy through Moodle.academy and create your own user account. Our courses are open so they're CCBY mostly and they're available for people to copy and reuse the content. There's a badge for every course and certificates are available for programs of sets of courses for a small fee. So what kind of courses can you find on Moodle Academy? We have three learning pathways, one for educators where you can learn how to teach, assess and communicate with your learners, one for Moodle administrators where you can learn how to manage and customize your Moodle site and a Moodle developer pathway which is all about learning how to develop with Moodle, create plugins, contribute to Moodle core code and set up your own Moodle development environment. We currently have four programs, over 47 courses. We've issued over 6,500 badges and we've got over 15,500 users registered so far. Here's a snapshot of some of our courses and it gives you an idea of the variety of courses we offer. So things like facilitating forums, we have a course on ABC learning design, one on introduction to Moodle net and developer courses like web output essentials. We also offer general courses like introduction to Moodle and introduction to accessibility. And we run regular webinars, so at the moment about two a month and we have also started delivering these in languages other than English. So on the right you can see a snapshot of our current webinars. If any of these peak your interest you can go on to Moodle.academy and sign up and if you can't make the actual webinar you can catch, watch the recording afterwards. Until the end of this year we've run, we'll have run 23 webinars and co-presented 11 of these. So roughly half are co-presented with community members including our partners. We've had over 1,200 people attend and over 36,000 views on YouTube. In the future we're planning to focus more on the developer and administrator pathways and enrich the general pathway as well, increase our frequency of webinars, offer webinars in more languages. We want to set up a credit payment system so organizations can fund their staff to get certified and integrate with your past digital credentials. We also have a suite of programs which are sets of courses where you can achieve a certificate of completion and we currently offer four programs. We've got Moodle Teaching Basics, Moodle Teaching Skills, Moodle Developer Basics and Moodle Admin Basics. And if you are familiar with Learn Moodle you'll recognise some of these names. We've redesigned them into short courses and added a lot more content as well. And we're also planning an additional intermediate level program for the developer pathway. So let's take a step back and have a look at the bigger picture of learning how to use Moodle within Moodle Academy. If we could represent the process of learning as a mountain then Moodle Academy's courses would be placed at the bottom along with the training that's offered by our partners. So Moodle Academy courses are self-paced and the partners courses add value by offering facilitation. So in the future we plan more programs. At the moment we're developing a program around assessment for example and we're also planning to expand the number of languages supported. So I'm going to hand over to Anna now who's going to speak to you about Moodle Academy certifications. Thank you Jessica. Thank you all of you for being here. So certifications allow users to organise, verify and so offer their learning experience in Moodle. The idea is to offer one certificate for each learning pathway. At the moment we have established and offered the Moodle Educator Certification and in future plans the development of equivalent programs for the administrator and developer pathways. Now as we are exploring the mountain picture from Jessica we would place the MEC at the top of the educators pathways. So if a user completes our two programs offered in the educator pathway and gets some teaching experience with Moodle at least here then this user will be ready to get the Moodle Educator Certification. Let's see the certification program closure. Well, what is the MEC? The MEC is an international certificate for teaching with Moodle and the competency framework that we generally use in the educators pathway and in the MEC is the European framework for the digital competence of educators. Perhaps you know it as Digicombe do. And this framework organises educators, professional pedagogy competencies as well as learners competencies into six areas. And MEC follows exactly the same structure and has six certification courses that lead to six badges and end up into one certificate. Please note that the MEC is offered exclusively by authorized Moodle certified service providers and at the moment is offered in nine different languages. English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, French, Catalan and German. And if you are interested about the MEC you can take more information from the Moodle.com slash MEC. Now in the future our plans is to develop a competency framework for Moodle administrators and Moodle developers. Having those we will be able to set up the Moodle administrator and the Moodle developers certifications. Now in Moodle Academy accessibility and inclusion are important elements for the learning of the future. So we try to keep academic courses simple and clear for people to get involved with and get value out of them. The training courses developed in Moodle Academy and the certification courses developed in the MEC side are both following the universal design for learning guidelines. That's why we follow a very simple and clearly layout without necessary graphics, videos that contain transcripts in online downloadable format. And also although the courses are self-paced and offered as such into the wide audience, we still use forums and trigger discussions so people can start engaging into the courses and set up their own self-regulated communities. Now finally we have clear course completion guidelines and auto-assisted pre and post course quizzes to help learners control their progress. Now following Moodle academy, Moodle Academy is working towards the easy translation of the course content. I'm not going to talk much about this thing. I just want to thank you, Andrew, who was our external collaborator and developer who helped us build this plug-in to easily translate the content of the courses and research in the following courses. So the future for us is to expand the translation even more and we want to coordinate and support train and coordinate the translators and group of translators to have all the courses of the academy in multiple languages. And of course we want to enhance accessibility by working on mobile app access. Now we're going to talk about the future of the community. Now we want to extend the future of the communities to involve community a lot. We already do this and we want people to come and to us and help us present webinars, work with us to create and facilitate sort online courses and you can also nominate yourself for other to contribute and you may suggest and vote on ideas of new webinars and courses. Actually, in our main page of the academy, you will find this icon says get involved and from there you will be led into a course where you can suggest topics and you can vote for topics already suggested and help us set up our curriculum. Now we have already several community contributions so far. We have four courses co-designed. We have 46 topics suggested and we have a lot of contributions, contribution nomination and of course, thankfully, we have a lot of translators already raised the hand to help us move on. Now the future for Moodle Academy is to involve the community even more. We want to change our team's role from instructional designers to coordinators of group of experts who want to serve their knowledge with wider audience as open educational resources. And of course, in conjunction with MoodleNet, our network to serve and curate open educational resources, we will collectively empower educators to improve our world. So, thank you and if you have any questions, please. Thank you very much, Anna and Jessica. Okay. As Richard comes up to prepare for the next presentation, we have time for just one question. If anyone has a burning question, but as you can see, we are the academy team. There's just one over there if you'd like to and you're welcome to ask us questions at any time. I saw something about payment system. Now they are free. The courses, what is the future of it? We didn't hear you well. So it was a question about the payment system. If they're free courses, why is there a payment system? You can purchase a certificate of completion for our programs, but the courses themselves are free and you receive a badge of completion for each course and program. So it's only if you require a certificate of completion, you can purchase those. How much? Oh, I think they're between 20 and 25 euros.


My name is Peter Swanton. I am from North Queensland. My family is from the Camilleroi tribe, which is sort of northern New South Wales, southern Queensland area. I am a undergraduate student here at ANU, studying a Bachelor of Science, majoring in physics and specialising in astronomy and astrophysics. ANU for me is everything I expected and more. It promised a lot and it delivered in its execution. The standard is extremely high, but the quality of support and the quality of teaching is there to match that standard that they expect. I think that's what's helped me to be as successful as I've been here. There are different levels of success for me. There's the obvious one, which is academic success. I've been able to get the results, so high distinctions and distinctions for all of my subjects so far, but there's also been a sort of personal growth in myself as well that I would call a success in that I was never a social person. Two years ago, when I came here, he would never sit me in front of a camera and do something like this. This is our way that I have now succeeded in something that I would never have done in the past. I want to finish my undergrad and that would be a huge success given the many trials that I've had at doing an undergrad in the past, but not to be content with that, to push that on to perhaps an honours year or a master's degree and eventually a PhD.