S2M-5510 Scottish Water

Scottish Parliament

Thursday 1 February 2007

[THE PRESIDING OFFICER opened the meeting at 09:15]

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Scottish Water

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Murray Tosh): The next item of business is a debate on motion S2M-5510, in the name of Mark Ruskell, on Scottish Water.

10:28

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11:23

Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): I congratulate the Greens on securing this very important debate. I can confirm that the absence of an SNP amendment means that we will support their motion at decision time.

The debate has highlighted a number of important points and illustrated a number of fundamental flaws in members' thinking. Perhaps the most fundamental is the idea, which emanates from the Conservative benches, that private ownership is good and public ownership is bad. Equally, we should not imagine that the reverse is necessarily the case. Just as the public sector is capable of success and failure, the private sector is also capable of success and—something that is less seen—very significant failure. Indeed, when there has been a crossover between the two—for example the involvement of the Capita Group and Electronic Data Systems as major contractors to the Government down south—the private sector has failed massively to deliver.

However, does such an example tell us that when the private sector conducts its private business and does not interface with the public sector it is as capable of making mistakes as the public sector? The question—it is important that we ask questions—is whether people in the public sector are capable of delivering good financial performance, meeting public objectives and supporting the people of Scotland. Of course, the answer is yes. We simply have to choose structures that make that possible.

Sarah Boyack said that the Labour manifesto has not been written yet. Oh dear. We thought that the Labour Party campaign was not going too well, but we now realise that its state of preparation is even poorer than we imagined. It is okay that Labour's manifesto has not been published yet, but the fact that it has not even been written shows the extent of the challenge that Labour faces. I hope that, in her closing remarks, the minister will nail her colours firmly to the mast, as her party's back benchers have done and as I think the Liberals have done—although Iain Smith was a little equivocal—and say that the future of Scottish Water lies in the public sector.

Iain Smith: I am happy to be unequivocal—we will ensure that Scottish Water stays in the public sector. What is the SNP's policy? It has not even lodged an amendment to the motion.

Stewart Stevenson: We support the Greens' motion, which advocates keeping Scottish Water in the public sector. We are with the Liberals on that—it is an area of broad agreement, although we might differ on matters of detail.

The Tories talk about service to customers. Aye, but the whole point is that the water industry provides an infrastructure that services public policy as well as private customers. It is unlikely that we would have two infrastructures for water delivery, which would involve two sets of pipes going all over Scotland. That is why the water industry is different from some other industries that have been privatised.

I want to raise some constituency issues. I have mentioned the case of Banff and Buchan College before. A hotel in my constituency has just received a bill for £35,000. Again, that was the result of inaccurate and incomplete meter reading by the private sector company that was contracted by Scottish Water.

We warmly welcome the fact that, in Scottish Water's strategic plans, developments must be supported. That is good. My colleague John Swinney has been banging on about that for some considerable time. However, we must address how capital funding takes place and we must get from the minister a sincere assurance that Scottish Water will stay in the public sector. If she fails to make that clear, all protestations of Labour's support for Scottish Water will fall on deaf ears.

11:27