– in the Scottish Parliament at on 1 December 2016.
John Lamont
Conservative
4. To ask the Scottish Government when it will publish details of the proposed single national board to oversee economic development and skills funding. (S5O-00419)
Keith Brown
Scottish National Party
Phase 2 of the enterprise and skills review will include work to take forward the detailed consideration and planning of the new single strategic Scotland-wide statutory board, which is intended to co-ordinate the activities of Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Skills Development Scotland and the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council. That work will also look at taking forward our commitment to establish a new vehicle to meet the unique enterprise and skills needs of the south of Scotland. The work began on 1 November 2016 and is intended to take around six months, until spring 2017.
John Lamont
Conservative
I was heartened when the Scottish Government announced that it was implementing the Scottish Conservatives’ idea of a south of Scotland enterprise agency. However, given the news that the HIE regional board is to go, I can only presume that south of Scotland enterprise will also be overseen by a national board. There is a real opportunity to create a local organisation to support economic development in the Borders and elsewhere in the south of Scotland, but I fear that the opportunity is being missed by the Scottish Government with its centralising agenda. What is the point of setting up a dedicated agency for the south of Scotland and then running that agency from the central belt?
Keith Brown
Scottish National Party
I am not sure whether that question implies that the Tories have withdrawn their support for the idea of a separate south of Scotland agency. It may well have been a Tory idea but, like many Tory ideas, it was never brought into force because the Tories never got round to doing it. It has taken an SNP Government to deliver it. It is to the credit of the SNP Government that, once again, we have taken action to help in the south of Scotland, whereas the Tories, in all the long years that they had the opportunity to do so, did not do it.
It is also important to understand that one of the workstreams in phase 2 of the review will look at the governance arrangements for the strategic board and how it relates to the individual agencies that will remain, all of which will be guaranteed a legal status. That work is on-going and will involve the people who are most closely involved in those agencies, with representation from south of Scotland interests. I am confident that the very high-calibre people who are involved in that work will ensure that we get the right governance arrangements for this new development that has been delivered by the SNP—the establishment of a south of Scotland agency.
Kate Forbes
Scottish National Party
Can the Cabinet secretary provide reassurance to my constituents and me about the future of Highlands and Islands Enterprise, which is absolutely critical to the Highlands?
Keith Brown
Scottish National Party
I am happy to repeat the assurances that I and other colleagues have given about HIE and the retention of its Inverness headquarters, control over staffing, its non-departmental public body status and its chief executive. Crucially, the same people in HIE who provide services to businesses and individuals now will be doing so at the end of the review. The review made a specific recommendation to maintain HIE in that way, to offer just the assurance that Kate Forbes requested.
As far as the allegations of centralisation are concerned, there is a real problem with that given that we are establishing an agency in the south of Scotland—that does not sound much like centralisation to me. We are making sure that we have the right services for the right parts of Scotland. I give the assurance that HIE will remain as an agency—that will be enshrined in law.
Rhoda Grant
Labour
Given the widespread Opposition to the proposed wrong-headed centralisation, will the Scottish Government listen to the people of the Highlands and Islands and change its mind about scrapping the HIE board, and keep management and decision making in the area?
Keith Brown
Scottish National Party
As I have just said, the management, the decision making and the services that are provided by HIE staff to individuals and companies in that area will remain.
As we go forward to discuss and agree the governance arrangements between the new overarching board and HIE, people who are involved in HIE at board level will be involved in—indeed, I hope that they will lead—the discussions. They will have an interest in making sure that HIE’s particular interests are reflected in the governance structure that is agreed. That might take many different forms. The crucial point is that the people who are involved in HIE now will be involved in that process.
In addition, HIE will be able to access much more easily—it cannot currently do this to the extent that we would like—the services of Scottish Development International, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council. That alignment of all the various agencies in Scotland will enable us not just to build on what HIE has achieved over the past 50 years, but to improve it even further to the benefit of people in that area.
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.
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 Opposition are the political parties in the House of Commons other than the largest or Government party. They are called the Opposition because they sit on the benches opposite the Government in the House of Commons Chamber. The largest of the Opposition parties is known as Her Majesty's Opposition. The role of the Official Opposition is to question and scrutinise the work of Government. The Opposition often votes against the Government. In a sense the Official Opposition is the "Government in waiting".
