Programme for Government

Part of the debate – in the Scottish Parliament at 4:13 pm on 9 September 1999.

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Photo of Jim Wallace Jim Wallace Liberal Democrat 4:13, 9 September 1999

As I have said, the first evaluation report of the rough sleepers initiative indicated that the initiative should not be limited to the route that it had already been going down, such as building hostels and providing hostel places, but that it needed to be refocused in order to give more support to people who pass through the hostels. That is being done and the initiative has been refocused. The Executive gives a pledge in "Making it work together", a pledge that I am confident that we can meet, which links to our pledges on tackling poverty and promoting a social inclusion strategy.

John Swinney asked about targets. The document says:

"We will work in partnership with the UK Government to tackle child poverty and raise over 60,000 children out of poverty in Scotland by 2002."

The document also refers to the regeneration of Scotland's most deprived neighbourhoods and to the healthy homes initiative, which will give priority to the elderly and those on low incomes.

As Duncan McNeil rightly observed, in an intervention during Alex Neil's speech, the most direct route out of poverty is a job. The document also refers to our intentions regarding the promotion of the enterprise culture in Scotland. There is no complacency on jobs and employment. This morning, the First Minister read out a long list of new jobs that have been announced in the past 10 days. The International Labour Organisation's unemployment rate for Scotland is well below the European Union average, and the claimant count is at its lowest since 1976.

We believe that an enterprise economy that focuses on the education and skills of our young people is the way forward, in order to ensure that those jobs exist in the future. Nursery places, investment in books and equipment and early intervention in primary schools to improve children's standards of literacy and numeracy all add up to ensuring that we have a well-skilled and educated young population that is able to contribute to Scotland's future prosperity.

Sylvia Jackson spoke about the importance of partnership. The document "Making it work together" reflects the partnership agreement between the Labour party and the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the partnership that we, as an Executive, want to have with this Parliament and with its committees in implementing many of those measures. We believe that the partnership is important within the United Kingdom in order to ensure that Scotland gets the best deal. Above all, the partnership is with the people of Scotland.

Many of us fought and worked for a Scottish Parliament because we believed that, when we had a Parliament that could determine Scotland's domestic agenda, we could make a difference to the lives of the people of Scotland. When the pledges in this document are implemented on the timetable that we have set, they will make a difference to the people of Scotland—a difference for the better.

I beg members to support the motion.