Mike Watson: To ask the Scottish Executive what steps are being taken to ensure that adequate health care is provided for rough sleepers.
Mike Watson: To ask the Scottish Executive whether it plans to introduce any changes to the arrangements for the dissemination of statistics.
Mike Watson: On a point of order. Is it in order for the member to have spoken for four minutes and 30 seconds without referring once to the report that is central to this debate?
Mike Watson: To ask the Scottish Executive what support is being given to voluntary groups working with the families of drug users.
Mike Watson: I welcome the opportunity to open this debate on the Finance Committee stage 2 report on the 2001-02 budget process. I cower slightly in the face of the information that I have 20 minutes for the opening statement. [MEMBERS: "Oh dear."] Twenty minutes is quite enough for me. I may not use it all and so I wonder whether I might prevail on you, Sir David, to bank any unused time for me to use...
Mike Watson: Thank you. This may not be startlingly original—indeed, I made similar comments when I introduced the stage 1 debate in the chamber on 28 June—but we are, in this process and in today's debate, indulging in what might loosely be termed groundbreaking stuff. We are two thirds of the way through the first year of the Parliament's budget process and two thirds of the way through the time...
Mike Watson: I accept that point; I will come on to address it. We must find a means of ensuring that the difficulties that emerged this year do not recur. Of course we are aware that every two years—or possibly every three years—similar problems will arise, and we must find a way out of those problems. Just to show that Mr Raffan intervened at precisely the right point in my speech, I will continue...
Mike Watson: I very much agree with what Andrew Wilson has said, which reflects the view of the committee. There was no division or difference of opinion on that matter among committee members. I cannot speak for the minister, but he will have an opportunity in due course to respond to those points. The committee's stage 1 report highlighted some of the shortcomings of the presentation of figures in...
Mike Watson: I find it impossible to accept what has just been said. The budget bill underpins everything that the Parliament does. The idea that it is excessive to have a debate lasting two and a half hours is perverse. The most important bill that is passed every year in the Parliament is the budget bill.
Mike Watson: On a point of order. We must draw a line between what is a statement and what is a non-specific comment. Anyone who heard the minister on "Good Morning Scotland" and then on Radio 5 this morning will agree that she gave away no details of the statement and spoke only in general terms. The statement will be made in the chamber.
Mike Watson: On Bill Aitken's last point, I do not know whether the SNP started this business; however, I very much regret that the SNP is the reason why we have division today. I take members back to the conveners committee meeting five weeks ago—attended, I think, by Kenny MacAskill—at which the SNP said that it would support the proposed plan for the revised committee structure only if there were...
Mike Watson: I have very little time. It is a fact that the SNP position has changed and Mr MacAskill can address that in his summing-up. I understand that the SNP has had internal difficulties. However, the irony is that the SNP is causing division when everyone else has sought to avoid it. It is self-evident to anyone who has been involved in or given evidence to a committee—or who has simply observed...
Mike Watson: Will the minister comment on the use of brownfield sites for house building, particularly social housing? Can he say anything about the cleaning up of contaminated land in our major cities, particularly Glasgow and Dundee, so that more people will be encouraged to come back to live in those cities and contribute to their economic regeneration?
Mike Watson: Janis Hughes has done well to secure the debate and I congratulate her on the content of her speech. When talking about accident and emergency units, she mentioned the fact that not only what Greater Glasgow Health Board wants but what the people of south and particularly south-east Glasgow want should be taken into account. That is what the cross-party group has been arguing for. That group...
Mike Watson: To ask the Scottish Executive, further to its announcement of the Social Inclusion Partnership (SIP) funding allocation for 2002-03 to 2003-04 on 28 December 2000, whether this announcement included any SIP allocation to Castlemilk in Glasgow.
Mike Watson: I wonder why Bill Aitken smiled when Kenny Gibson was going through his litany of good wishes and back-slapping of Labour politicians. I am sure it was because it is not usual to see so much unanimity in the chamber. It is, however, good for the city of Glasgow that all members are speaking in the same tongue and pulling in the same direction. I echo the comments of members who said that...
Mike Watson: It is nice to follow Donald Gorrie and to hear that the partnership parties, at least sometimes, speak with the same voice. I hope that that will continue for the rest of the afternoon, although I am not holding my breath. This afternoon's debate has been strange. We heard Andrew Wilson's single transferable speech, which we get on every budget occasion, and which talks about everything other...
Mike Watson: Perhaps that is because it is becoming more and more obvious as we get closer to the general election that the Tory party is hamstrung by Michael Portillo's comments that they would cut something like £16 billion of public expenditure if—in the horror scenario—they were elected. Scotland's share of that would be almost £2 billion. I cannot offer David Davidson the opportunity to respond...
Mike Watson: I hope that the Presiding Officer will be tolerant and allow me to answer that point, although it does not relate directly to today's debate—but why should I break the afternoon's trend? I will quote to David Davidson what his mentor Michael Portillo said about Labour's spending commitments. He said that Labour's "extra spending, over and above what the economy can afford"— in his...
Mike Watson: To ask the Scottish Executive whether there have been any changes to external finance limits set for each water authority this year and what budgets it proposes to allocate each water authority in the next financial year.