Keith Raffan: To ask the Scottish Executive what its estimate is of the increase in money for education that will be available in 2000-01 to each of Fife, Stirling, Clackmannanshire, Angus, and Perth and Kinross Councils as a consequence of the £80 million extra spending for education announced by the Minister for Finance on 6 October. (S1O-464)
Keith Raffan: Does the minister agree that the extra sum means that the pupils of Dunblane High, who were here this morning, will directly benefit from the partnership agreement between our parties? Will he reassure me that the good that will be done for education by the extra money will not be undone by capping Perth and Kinross Council's spending next year if its budget is slightly above guidelines,...
Keith Raffan: To ask the Scottish Executive whether the First Minister was consulted by the Secretary of State for Scotland in regard to the cost of setting up offices and employing additional staff for the Scotland Office.
Keith Raffan: I will try to get the debate back on track. [Applause.] I welcome the speech by the Deputy Minister for Communities. We on the Liberal Democrat benches are happy to endorse the Scottish compact. I will address one reservation in a moment—it was alluded to by Lloyd Quinan in his remarks. I welcome the independent review of charity law. The review, as announced by the minister, is very much...
Keith Raffan: I will make one more point about funding, although there are others that I would like to make but cannot because the Liberal Democrat front-bench spokesmen get only a fraction of the time allocated to the Scottish National party and the Conservatives. I hope that that will be resolved shortly because it is completely unsatisfactory.
Keith Raffan: I hope that attempts will be made to harness the resources of the private sector in such areas as mentoring. We should look to what is being done in the United States. In Manhattan, banks, law firms and advertising companies are being brought in to help excluded young people in the Bronx, Harlem and elsewhere. Those resources are not necessarily financial resources. They might be...
Keith Raffan: Will the Deputy First Minister give serious consideration to remarks made earlier today by the governor of Cornton Vale prison, who questioned whether imprisonment was the best way in which to deal with people with addiction problems who commit minor offences? Does he agree that it would be far more sensible and humane—never mind cost-effective—to place those people in treatment...
Keith Raffan: Can the minister clarify the position on the availability of extra resources for road maintenance, bearing in mind the widespread concern among all local authorities in the Mid Scotland and Fife constituency? For example, roads in Fife will now be renewed every 276 years when they should be renewed every 40 years.
Keith Raffan: Further to Mr Gorrie's point of order, Presiding Officer. Would it not be far more sensible to have a statement one week, followed by far less restrictive questioning than we are having now, and a debate the following week? Can we not refer this to the Procedures Committee?
Keith Raffan: I, too, welcome the minister's statement, particularly her announcement about preventive measures. Does she agree—or at least take on board if she cannot agree—that in addition to what she has announced, we urgently need extra resources for treatment and after care for alcoholics and drug addicts so that they do not end up in hostels, let alone on the streets? In other words, we need...
Keith Raffan: rose—
Keith Raffan: If Mr McLetchie believes in flexibility, how can he support Mr Hague's policy of firmly ruling out a single currency for the whole of the next Parliament? That is not flexibility.
Keith Raffan: rose—
Keith Raffan: It is over 30 years since I spoke at my first pro-European rally. I was perched somewhat precariously on the sloping base of Nelson's column in Trafalgar square. There were a number of senior Tories alongside me on the base of the column. All of them, bar one, have now left the Conservative party because of Europe, and almost all of them are members of the Liberal Democrat party. Those are...
Keith Raffan: He never does answer questions, so why should he change now? One must admit that there is a neat symmetry between the Conservative party and the Scottish National party. The Conservative party was passionately pro-Europe back in the early 1970s and it took us into Europe. Now it is bitterly hostile; it is a party of bunker Toryism.
Keith Raffan: No, I am not giving way. I have a very short time. That phrase—bunker Toryism—is used by the president of the Conservative party in Scotland, Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He now describes Conservative policy on Europe as bunker Toryism because so many of the Conservatives want to renegotiate membership of the European Union and they are intolerant of those who are pro-euro. A former Prime...
Keith Raffan: I am sorry, but I do not have time. I would like to give way, but I have only one minute left. I will try to give way. Mr Salmond has given way to me in the past. Tavish Scott made the crucial point about our policy in Europe. Earlier this year the then two Liberal Democrat MEPs, Graham Watson and Robin Teverson, were the first to put down a motion censuring the two commissioners who were...
Keith Raffan: We have been consistently pro the single currency. We believe that the convergence criteria must be met, and we want to go in at the earliest opportunity. We have been consistent in that policy. I would like Mr Salmond to explain how the SNP went from being bitterly hostile to Europe to being pro-Europe. That was a very convenient conversion. "It's Scotland's Oil" failed, so the SNP now...
Keith Raffan: The SNP never mentions Ireland now as the great example of what it would like Scotland to be. With the enlargement of the Community and the reform of structural funds, the SNP knows that we will not get the kind of support that it always claimed we would get if we were independent within Europe.
Keith Raffan: Another reason why the SNP never alludes to Ireland is that it is a high-tax economy. That is exactly what Scotland would be under the SNP.
