First Minister’s Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 20 June 2024.
Jackie Baillie
Labour
Across Scotland, national health service and social care partnerships are facing a combined budget gap of almost £1.4 billion, which means that there will be severe cuts to social care services. In Glasgow, that will lead to cuts to community health services, cuts to the discharge and resettlement teams, cuts to care home nursing teams and the loss of 72 staff, including health visitors, nurses, allied health professionals and complex needs workers. Will the First Minister tell me why, if we all agree that we must increase support for primary care, his Government is doing the exact opposite in Glasgow and is cutting social services and staff?
John Swinney
Scottish National Party
That is courageous questioning from Jackie Baillie. For some considerable time, I have been trying to set out to Parliament the enormous pressure on public finances. [Interruption.] If Jackie Baillie would stop interrupting me, we might make a little more progress.
Scotland faces a public spending crisis, but the Labour Party is proposing to continue that austerity. That is what is being proposed. [Interruption.]
Alison Johnstone
Green
Members.
John Swinney
Scottish National Party
This Government has taken hard decisions to increase the resources that are available for investment in public services. We have asked people with higher earnings to contribute more in taxation to enable us to invest more in the health service and in social care. That is what we have done. Jackie Baillie opposed that—she opposed every single bit of it.
There is now an opportunity, on 4 July, to elect a Government that could end austerity, but the Labour Party is not seizing the opportunity to end austerity—the Labour Party is going to prolong austerity. I gently suggest to Jackie Baillie that it would help the situation if the Labour Party committed itself to ending austerity and supported this Government’s agenda so that we could address the issues that she raises with me.
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.
