Part of First Minister’s Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at on 25 March 2026.
John Swinney
Scottish National Party
One of the things that Anas Sarwar failed to mention in his commentary about the national health service is that, since 2021, we have had the Covid pandemic, which created significant disruption to our national health service. What is the Government doing about that? The Government is ensuring that waits of over a year have decreased for eight consecutive months across new out-patient and in-patient day cases. New out-patient waits of more than a year have more than halved. In 80 per cent of disciplines in the national health service, there are no waiting times whatever beyond 52 weeks. That is the Government taking action to improve the circumstances in the national health service.
Anas Sarwar talked about a potential change of Government. People in Scotland need to be really wary about all of this. Anas Sarwar stood here a couple of years ago and argued for a change of Government in the United Kingdom. We got a change of Government, but what else did we get? We got the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which is damaging the economy, and we got the actions that have been taken to remove winter fuel payments; we have had failure after failure from the UK Government. Now, Anas Sarwar turns round and says that everybody was foolish to vote for that man Keir Starmer, whom he had argued that we should all vote for. That tells us that Mr Sarwar is a man of poor judgment that the people of Scotland should not listen to and will not listen to on 7 May.
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.
