First Minister's Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 12:00 pm on 29 March 2007.
Rt Hon Jack McConnell
Labour
I sincerely hope that the next meeting of the Scottish Executive's Cabinet will discuss building up Scotland, not breaking up Britain.
Annabel Goldie
Conservative
With only five weeks to go before the election, I hope that the First Minister will focus on articulating the positive case for remaining within the United Kingdom. Does the First Minister realise that it is possible to value and applaud the union without belittling Scotland? By using the language of the apocalypse, he is simply playing into the hands of the nationalists.
Will the First Minister start to make the positive case and paint a picture of a confident Scottish nation that, as part of the United Kingdom, shapes the world and gives our people the best of both worlds?
Rt Hon Jack McConnell
Labour
I can do both. Scotland benefits from being part of the fifth largest economy in the world and from our partnership with the stable United Kingdom economy. As a result of that and the policies secured, and the legislation delivered, by the Scottish Parliament, Scotland today has the highest employment in the United Kingdom, the lowest unemployment since records began and an increasing—rather than a declining—population. We have investments in skills and jobs in Scotland that are outpacing the rest of the country. That success is part of the story of Scotland inside the UK, but it is also part of the devolution story.
During the next five weeks, I will not only outline the positive case for Scotland; I will expose the nationalists' policies. For example, they wish to devolve power over our national sporting heroes—against their will—and make a separate Olympic team, but they do not want power over the Scottish currency; they want to leave that with the Bank of England. They have a mish-mash of policies that would be a disgrace to any serious party, but which is very appropriate for them.
Annabel Goldie
Conservative
The First Minister has a very small window of opportunity. He must realise that any increase in poll ratings for the nationalists is not about Nicola Sturgeon or Alex Salmond—and it is certainly not about independence, for which there remains little appetite—but about the First Minister and his Lib Dem cronies. The people of Scotland are so fed up with their failure that they are desperate to make devolution work better.
Does the First Minister accept that if he had not squandered the first eight years of devolution he would not be in this mess?
Rt Hon Jack McConnell
Labour
The 200,000 Scots who have a job today but did not under the Conservatives do not think that devolution has been squandered. The 1,000 Scots who were not victims of a violent crime last year but who would have been the year before do not think that the improvements that we have made in policing and the courts have had no impact. The Scots who are benefiting from the record number of drug seizures on our streets, which ensures that more people with drugs are caught and criminalised because they are selling drugs and that more drugs are taken off Scotland's streets, realise that there are benefits in devolution. The primary and secondary schoolchildren whose results are far higher than they were when the Tories were in power do not think that the years of devolution have been squandered. They are the people we represent. They are benefiting from devolution and they will continue to benefit as we build up Scotland.
Annabel Goldie
Conservative
The Scottish Conservatives are doing what the First Minister will not do, cannot do, but should have been doing. The Scottish Conservatives are making sensible proposals to sort out the bread-and-butter issues on which the Lib-Lab pact has failed. We have made proposals on affordable housing, on defeating drugs and cutting crime and on standing up for families. It is about time the First Minister realised that the only way to save the union is to save devolution; and the only way to save devolution is to start making it work for the people of Scotland and sorting out the issues that matter most to them. Making this Parliament deliver for its people is the only way to save our union from the nationalists. The First Minister and his Lib-Lab pact might not be up for that fight, but I and the Scottish Conservatives certainly are.
Rt Hon Jack McConnell
Labour
We have significantly less crime today, and many more police, than we had during the Tory years. We have 200,000 more jobs than we had during the Tory years. More people survive heart disease, cancer and stroke in this country than they did during the Tory years. More of our children get better results at school and get the chance to go on to university and college than they did during the Tory years.
In all those areas, devolution and this Labour and—yes—Liberal Democrat partnership have made a difference for Scotland. In each and every one of those areas, progress has been made that would not have been made under the Tories. Over the next few weeks, I will be delighted to debate with Annabel Goldie ideas about how we can build on the smoking ban to improve our public health, how we can build on the 200,000 extra jobs to
Question Time is an opportunity for MPs and Members of the House of Lords to ask Government Ministers questions. These questions are asked in the Chamber itself and are known as Oral Questions. Members may also put down Written Questions. In the House of Commons, Question Time takes place for an hour on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays after Prayers. The different Government Departments answer questions according to a rota and the questions asked must relate to the responsibilities of the Government Department concerned. In the House of Lords up to four questions may be asked of the Government at the beginning of each day's business. They are known as 'starred questions' because they are marked with a star on the Order Paper. Questions may also be asked at the end of each day's business and these may include a short debate. They are known as 'unstarred questions' and are less frequent. Questions in both Houses must be written down in advance and put on the agenda and both Houses have methods for selecting the questions that will be asked. Further information can be obtained from factsheet P1 at the UK Parliament site.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
The cabinet is the group of twenty or so (and no more than 22) senior government ministers who are responsible for running the departments of state and deciding government policy.
It is chaired by the prime minister.
The cabinet is bound by collective responsibility, which means that all its members must abide by and defend the decisions it takes, despite any private doubts that they might have.
Cabinet ministers are appointed by the prime minister and chosen from MPs or peers of the governing party.
However, during periods of national emergency, or when no single party gains a large enough majority to govern alone, coalition governments have been formed with cabinets containing members from more than one political party.
War cabinets have sometimes been formed with a much smaller membership than the full cabinet.
From time to time the prime minister will reorganise the cabinet in order to bring in new members, or to move existing members around. This reorganisation is known as a cabinet re-shuffle.
The cabinet normally meets once a week in the cabinet room at Downing Street.
The Conservatives are a centre-right political party in the UK, founded in the 1830s. They are also known as the Tory party.
With a lower-case ‘c’, ‘conservative’ is an adjective which implies a dislike of change, and a preference for traditional values.
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
