Keith Raffan: Will the member give way?
Keith Raffan: I am grateful, Madam Presiding Officer. I will shoot straight in: I am in favour of public sector job dispersal; I am in favour of motherhood and apple pie, too. The matter is pretty obvious. I welcome the First Minister's initiative to extend the existing relocation policy through the small-unit relocation programme. Such relocations would involve 10 to 15 jobs that can be carried out in...
Keith Raffan: Does Mr McNulty agree that it is a question not only of transparency but of much more information being available to possible bidders right at the beginning of a possible relocation? Does he also agree that it is about the nature of the relocation, the kind of jobs that are required, the facilities that are required and so on? I have received many complaints from local authorities in my...
Keith Raffan: To ask the Scottish Executive which NHS boards have a general medical services enhanced service contract for drugs.
Keith Raffan: To ask the Scottish Executive what guidance it has given on the content of the enhanced general medical services contract for drugs.
Keith Raffan: To ask the Scottish Executive why it requires waiting list and waiting time information for drug treatment services to be maintained on a monthly basis and whether it has estimated the administrative cost of this requirement.
Keith Raffan: The Stirling-Alloa-Kincardine Railway and Linked Improvements Bill is, as today's debate has demonstrated, important to the whole of the region that I represent, Mid Scotland and Fife. Like the minister, I will indulge in a moment of nostalgia—by the way, we all look forward to reading the diaries that we know he so assiduously keeps. The project has run like a thread through much of my...
Keith Raffan: No. I will not spoil my speech, my last day in this chamber or the consensual atmosphere by allowing a partisan intervention by our colleague from wherever he is from. [ Laughter. ] I think that he is a member for my region, but he lives in Edinburgh. The bill fulfils a Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment. We are greatly indebted to the Executive for providing funding of £30 million that...
Keith Raffan: rose—
Keith Raffan: The minister has failed to mention someone who should be mentioned. I refer to a former colleague in the Parliament, namely the former member for Ochil, Dr Richard Simpson. I, Dr Jackson and the Presiding Officer attended many meetings at Clackmannanshire Council about this project. While the minister is doling out generous paeans of praise, I think it would be worthy and worth while that he...
Keith Raffan: I welcome the minister's announcement of an updated action plan and additional measures. When will that plan be published, what resources will be made available to back it up and will it include a specific screening plan and further harm-reduction measures?
Keith Raffan: I hesitate to say, although I am afraid that I have to say, that the problem is a financial time bomb whatever happens. It is expensive to treat people with combination therapy, which costs £7,000 to £9,000 for a course of treatment but, if we do not do that, we will have an epidemic of cirrhosis and liver cancer further down the line. There will be bedblocking the like of which we have...
Keith Raffan: Will the member take an intervention?
Keith Raffan: I am a little bit worried about the direction in which Mr Aitken is going. I hope that he can assure the Parliament that he is not suggesting that those who, sadly, suffer from an addiction—drug addiction is a disease—should in any way be victimised for that disease, any more than alcoholics or those who smoke cigarettes, whose addiction is harder to kick and probably causes the greatest...
Keith Raffan: But the Tory Government did that for ages.
Keith Raffan: I am glad to have the opportunity to open this debate, which in my view is the most important in which I have ever spoken in this Parliament. The hepatitis C epidemic is a public health crisis. That was the opening key message of the final consensus statement that was produced at the end of the conference on hepatitis C that was held by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in April....
Keith Raffan: Is the First Minister aware that certain parliamentary committees have not had a happy experience in dealing with the Scottish Prison Service? That was particularly the case when the Social Inclusion, Housing and Voluntary Sector Committee in the previous parliamentary session, under the convenership of Ms Curran, undertook an inquiry into drug misuse and deprived communities. Will the First...
Keith Raffan: Will the minister give way?
Keith Raffan: I congratulate my colleague Iain Smith on obtaining this important debate on affordable housing in north-east Fife. North-east Fife is, of course, part of the wider region of mid-Scotland and Fife that I and Mr Ruskell represent. As Mr Ruskell knows, north-east Fife is just one of several serious pressure points—if one can use that phrase—where there is a desperate need for affordable...
Keith Raffan: That is absolutely bizarre.
