6. To ask the Scottish Government, in light of the facilities being similar, what the reason is for the difference in the costs of building the Murray royal, Gartnavel royal and New Craigs psychiatric units. (S4O-03706)

There are substantial differences in the scope and specifications of the facilities that Jenny Marra mentions. Gartnavel royal hospital was completed in 2007, with an estimated capital cost of £17.7 million. New Craigs hospital was completed in 2000, with an estimated capital value of £16.5 million. Both have floor areas in the region of 9,000 square miles—sorry, 9,000m2. [Laughter.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer:

Order, please.

Well, I did say that I was ambitious for the health service.

The Murray royal hospital, which was completed in 2012 and has an estimated capital value of approximately £75 million, is a substantially larger facility with a broader scope of services and has, unlike the other two facilities that Jenny Marra mentioned, a secure care facility. The overall floor area is—I will say this very carefully—approximately 24,200m2.

In addition, construction costs vary substantially over time and there is a difference of 12 years between the earliest completion date and the latest.

The Cabinet secretary’s answer is very interesting, because there are actually less beds—

Members: Fewer!

—in the Murray royal psychiatric unit than there are in New Craigs, yet it cost £50 million more to build. I wonder whether the cabinet secretary would put his auditors or national health service auditors on the case of that £50 million increase.

Why did the Murray royal drop £10 million to £11 million in value on the day on which it was taken on to NHS Tayside’s books? The NHS Tayside board has not come up with an answer to that; maybe the cabinet secretary knows the answer.

Jenny Marra will probably have heard of apples and oranges. My advice is never to compare the two or to try to draw conclusions from doing so. To compare the costs that are associated with the Murray royal with the other two facilities is nonsensical for the reasons that I outlined—the time difference, the configuration of services and facilities, and because Murray royal has a secure care facility. It is to be expected that building something 12 years later would cost more, particularly during a period when construction costs were rising substantially. If the hospital was bigger in terms of the square meterage, and if it included a secure facility, even a poor economist would expect a substantial price difference.