Acting Alba party leader says no decision yet taken over whether Sturgeon will be invited to Salmond’s memorial service

Severin Carrell

Claims that Nicola Sturgeon has been banned from attending Alex Salmond’s memorial service have been rejected as “premature” by Kenny MacAskill, the acting leader of Alba, the former first minister’s nationalist party.

The Sunday Mail reported at the weekend an Alba source saying there was “not a chance in hell” that Sturgeon would be invited, given the pair’s incendiary split over the allegations of sexual misconduct against Salmond.

Sturgeon and Salmond have not spoken since the allegations emerged following a Scottish government inquiry in 2018. Salmond had repeatedly accused her aides of orchestrating a smear campaign against him – claims Sturgeon has consistently dismissed.

In a statement rejecting the Sunday Mail’s claims, MacAskill said:

Now is the time for Alex’s family to be given the privacy and time to grieve the loss of a beloved husband, brother and uncle.

An announcement will be made in the coming days about arrangements for a private funeral to be attended by his family and close friends.

There will be time in the coming weeks to celebrate his life and commemorate his achievements in a memorial service, the family have yet to make any arrangements for that. All other speculation is premature.

Salmond’s family are expecting to hold a private funeral for the former first minister in his home village of Strichen, Aberdeenshire, next week, where he will also be buried. No date has yet been fixed for a memorial service, though some allies have suggested St Andrew’s Day on 30 November.

It remains unclear whether Sturgeon would expect to be invited. Salmond told a BBC Scotland documentary which aired last month: “It’s a big regret that Nicola and I are no longer on speaking terms and I seriously doubt if it’s going to improve.”

Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, was giving interviews this morning on behalf of the government. He was promoting the consultation on the future of the NHS, but many of the questions he took were about the government’s plans for a digital “patient passport”, ensuring people’s medical records are all available in one place, through the NHS app. Pippa Crerar and Denis Campbell explain that here.

Kinnock sought to play down concerns that people’s data would be at risk. But, in an interview with Mishal Husain on the Today programme, he was could not give her firm assurances on this point.

When Husain asked if people’s patient records would be available to all 1.5 million NHS employees under the government’s plans, Kinnock said the protocols would be set out in the forthcoming data bill. He went on:

We’re absolutely committed to protecting data, and we need the cyber security in place. Of course, one of the problems is the NHS uses Excel XP which is not conducive to the most modern cyber security techniques. We’ve got to modernize the tech.

Husain said protecting data from cyber attacks was a diferent matter, and she again asked if all NHS employees would be able to access someone’s medical records. Kinnock replied:

What we’re proposing is no different to online banking apps. So this is definitely more NatWest than it is Star Trek. This is a system that is going to be based on common sense, on enabling a single patient record.

In the end, if we don’t modernise the NHS, make it more efficient and productive, you can have the best data protection rules in the world, but you not going to have a health and care system that actually works.

Husain tried twice more to get a clear answer about the restrictions on NHS staff accessing individuals’ records. Kinnock did not say in detail how the system would work, but he said ultimately it was a matter of balance.

You’ve got to have a system that works and that enables the hugely important interface between GPS, hospitals and patients, and to create that single patient record.

That has to be balanced against water tight data protection, and that is the balance that we’re going to strike.

But if you constantly just say, we can’t do this because of data protection concerns, you’re just going to have the status quo going on and on and on, and you’re going to have a system that doesn’t work.

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Michael Gove has said that the most hurtful part of his political career was the attacks on his former wife, Sarah Vine, Peter Walker reports.

Good morning. When the Labour government came into power, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, declared on his first day in office “the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken”. The government is going to published a 10-year health plan to fix it, and it is due to be published next spring.

Streeting has said the plan will involve three main elements: moving from analogue to digital; more focus on primary care, not hospital care; and more focus on prevention. Keir Starmer explained them in a speech on the NHS in September.

But today the government asking people who work in the NHS and use it – the “entire nation”, as the Department of Health and Social Care puts it in its news release – to contribute to a consultation how health service should change. The DHSC explains:

Members of the public, as well as NHS staff and experts will be invited to share their experiences views and ideas for fixing the NHS via the online platform, change.nhs.uk, which will be live until the start of next year, and available via the NHS App.

The public engagement exercise will help shape the government’s 10 Year Health Plan which will be published in spring 2025 and will be underlined by three big shifts in healthcare – hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention …

Bold ambitions for the NHS can only be achieved by listening to the expertise and knowledge of its 1.54 million strong workforce. Their understanding of what’s holding them back from performing at their best will help us bring down waiting times and provide the world class care the public deserve.

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The government has already taken immediate action to address challenges in the health service and deliver an NHS fit for the future. Whether that’s agreeing a deal with resident doctors within weeks, securing a funding increase for GP practices to manage rising pressures or hiring an extra 1,000 GPs into the NHS by the end of this year, there are both short- and long-term reforms working hand in hand.

Streeting has posted a link to the online consultation page on social media.

Governments launch consultations for various reasons. Clearly, when ministers are making big changes to large, important institutions, it makes sense to find out first what the public think, and occasionally these exercise throw up ideas overlooked by the thinktank, policy-making world. But that is not the only, or even the main, function of these initiatives like this. Ensuring people feel consulted can be just as important as finding out what they think.

More importantly, this is also about pitch-rolling – persuading people that an issue matters, and that change is needed. The public don’t need to be told that the NHS needs rescuing; it is regularly at or near the top of problems that people say matter to them most, according to polling. But we are less than two weeks away from a budget that is set to raise the tax burden by a record amount in cash terms (not necessarily as a proportion of GDP) and it is very, very important for the government to convince people that this is happening for reason (like fixing the broken NHS) and not just out of profligacy. Gordon Brown was the master of this; when he put up national insurance to raise money for the NHS, it turned out to be one of the most popular tax rises ever. Today’s NHS consultation is probably more about budget framing than about a scramble for ideas to pad out next year’s 10-year plan.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, are visiting a health centre in London to launch their public consultation on the NHS’s future.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

2.20pm: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, opens the Commons debate on the second reading of the employment rights bill.

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