Scottish Parliament, 26 October 2022

314 contributions from 63 members. The official report.

Constitution, External Affairs and Culture

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Cowdenbeath)

Good afternoon. The first item of business is portfolio questions, and the first portfolio is Constitution, External Affairs and Culture. Any member who wishes to ask a supplementary question should press their request-to-speak button or, if they are joining us online, enter the letter R in the chat function during the relevant question.

I again make a plea for short and succinct questions and answers, in order to get in as many members as possible.

United Kingdom Government (Independence Referendum)

Karen Adam (Scottish National Party, Banffshire and Buchan Coast)

1. To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether the reported on-going political instability within the United Kingdom Government impacts on the timing of its plans to ask the constitutional question of whether Scotland should be an independent country. (S6O-01444)

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

UK Government policies are making major economic challenges—such as inflation, inequality and the cost of living crisis—worse. Instability and uncertainty are increasing as financial markets express a lack of confidence in the UK Government’s economic management and competence.

Scotland has an abundance of skilled people, innovative businesses and natural resources. We have everything it takes to be just as successful as comparable independent European countries. Independence is essential to building a stronger economy, a more just society and a Scotland that works for everyone, for this and future generations. We are fully committed to holding an independence referendum in October next year, pending the decision of the Supreme Court.

Karen Adam (Scottish National Party, Banffshire and Buchan Coast)

With Liz Truss having become Prime Minister with the backing of just 80,000 voters and now Rishi Sunak’s taking up of the post being co-ordinated by a cluster of Tory MPs, the Conservative Party’s democratic mandate is becoming more and more diluted. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the Tories have no leg to stand on when they question the Scottish Government’s cast-iron mandate to hold an independence referendum next year?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

The Scottish Government will certainly not take any lectures from a party that has not won a national election in Scotland since the 1950s. There was a Scottish Parliament election last year, and a record number of members of this chamber were elected on a manifesto commitment that the people should be able to express their view on Scotland’s constitutional future as an independent country. We still live in a democratic state, the people have had their say, the people’s decision should be respected and they should have a vote next autumn on Scotland’s independent future. My advice to those parties that are pursuing the argument of democracy denial is that they really should give up on it.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I have requests for three supplementary questions, and I intend to take all of them.

Donald Cameron (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

The question mentions political instability. Is it not the truth that the only threat to the political stability of the United Kingdom is the Scottish Government’s blinkered commitment to a divisive, polarising referendum that is creating uncertainty for people and businesses across Scotland?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I think that Donald Cameron is making the mistake of rereading his election leaflets from last year, when that was the position of the Scottish Conservatives, while the position of the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Green Party was that the people should have their say in a referendum. His party lost the election and the SNP and the Greens won the election. We form a Government in this place, and a majority of MSPs wish the people to have a say in a referendum. So long as we live in a democracy, we should act on the wishes of the electorate. It is a shame that some parties in this chamber do not believe that.

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Lothian)

I agree with the cabinet secretary that the Tories have created massive inequalities and divisions, but will he accept that our focus in Scotland now should be on tackling the cost of living crisis, not replicating such division and wasting £20 million on a referendum that people simply do not want?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I refer Sarah Boyack to the answer that I gave a moment ago. She was elected to this place opposing a referendum on Scotland’s future, but a majority of MSPs were elected to deliver one.

The question is not an either/or one. Yes, we need to deal with the social and economic challenges—in particular, those that are being exacerbated by the UK Tory party—but the idea that we should somehow park democracy while that takes place is misguided and wrong. As democrats, we should deliver on what the public has voted for and not block democratic choice.

Willie Rennie (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

By the Government’s admission, an independent Scotland would use the currency of a foreign country, with no influence over its economic policy. For at least 10 years, we would be outside the UK and European Union single markets. Is it not the case that the Scottish Government’s plans for independence would repeat the mistakes of Liz Truss’s economic plans, rather than learn those lessons?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I could answer the question simply by saying, “No”, but I will also make the point that I have made in the chamber a number of times before: it is neither a liberal nor a democratic position to block democratic votes on the constitutional future of a country. I understand that the Liberal Democrats in Scotland would prefer power to be exercised over Scotland’s future at Westminster. We have a different view on that. When the public elects a Parliament on a manifesto commitment that there should be a referendum, as democrats, we should at least agree that a referendum should take place. After that, we can have the substantive debate and discussion about the different policy questions. Even at this late stage, I appeal to the Liberal Democrats to re-examine their liberalism and their belief in democracy, because, at the present time, not much of that is on show.

Independence (Border between Scotland and England)

Neil Bibby (Labour, West Scotland)

2. To ask the Scottish Government whether it has considered all the implications of a border between an independent Scotland and England. (S6O-01445)

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

The implication of independence is that Scotland will be wealthier and fairer. On average, independent countries comparable to Scotland that are cited in the first paper in the updated independence prospectus have national incomes that are £14,000 greater per head than ours.

As Mr Bibby is aware, the leader of the United Kingdom Labour Party said:

“let me be very clear: with Labour, Britain will not go back into the EU. We will not be joining the single market. We will not be joining a customs union.”

That is the bad news, but there is better news. Keir Starmer also pledged that

“Labour would eliminate most border checks created by the Tory Brexit deal”.

Neil Bibby (Labour, West Scotland)

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Under standing orders, ministers are meant to address the question that is put. I do not believe that the minister is addressing the question that I asked, which was about the full implications of a border between an independent Scotland and England. His answer seems to be about national incomes and various other things that were not part of the question.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I suggest that Mr Bibby uses his supplementary question to tease out further information.

Neil Bibby (Labour, West Scotland)

I thank the minister for his answer, which was not an answer to the question that I put, which was on the order paper.

The Scottish Government has asserted that it will not be required to accept the Schengen agreement, which the European Union has been clear applies to any new state that wishes to enter the bloc. Instead, the Scottish Government has indicated its desire to continue to be part of the British and Irish common travel area. Does that mean that, in order to make that work, the Scottish Government has accepted that an independent Scotland would be required to align its immigration policies with the rest of the United Kingdom?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I gently suggest to Neil Bibby that, if he wants to get full answers to questions, making points of order in the middle of ministers’ attempts to answer them is probably not the best way to do so.

The best path for Scotland’s future is to become independent, to rejoin the European Union, to manage our borders appropriately

and to escape the disastrous Brexit-based economy that Labour and the Tories are intent on inflicting on people in Scotland.

I ask Neil Bibby to reflect on Sir Keir Starmer’s commitment that

“Labour would eliminate most border checks created by the Tory Brexit deal”.

Is that a commitment or is it not?

Neil Bibby (Labour, West Scotland)

He is asking me questions now.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Portfolio question time is about members putting questions to Government ministers. In that context, I am not entirely sure that it is for Mr Bibby to answer questions.

We move to a supplementary question from Emma Harper.

Emma Harper (Scottish National Party, South Scotland)

I have a direct border question. Under the common travel area, Scotland, like Ireland, will retain freedom of movement across the British isles and Ireland. That means that people, such as my constituents who live on one side of the border but work on the other, will continue to be able to do so and will be able to move freely between Scotland and England. Can the cabinet secretary confirm that that will be the case? Can he indicate whether he expects the UK Government to try to mess with the CTA arrangements, which predate the European Union?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I agree entirely with what Emma Harper has said. Let us remember that it is Brexit that is creating borders. If the UK Government takes a sensible approach to its relationship with the EU, many of the measures that we talk about in our paper could be extremely minimal. Nobody sensible would argue that Scotland could not remain in the common travel area. Although

I cannot speak for the UK Government, that is not only in Scotland’s interests but in the interests of everybody in the United Kingdom.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Question 3 was not lodged.

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Elena Whitham (Scottish National Party, Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

4. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on any discussions with the United Kingdom Government, in light of the concerns raised with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy regarding the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill. (S6O-01447)

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

On 11 October, the secretary of state replied to my letter of 5 October, which outlined the Scottish Government’s fundamental opposition to the bill. Our position remains that we would like the bill to be withdrawn or, at the very least, significantly changed in order for Scotland’s interests—and devolution generally—to be protected.

Mr Rees-Mogg’s response did not alleviate our concerns about the bill, and my officials, along with devolved Government colleagues, have been engaging weekly with the UK Government officials who are in charge of the bill to make clear the necessity of those changes.

Elena Whitham (Scottish National Party, Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley)

I know that the cabinet secretary agrees that, with the sunsetting of retained European Union law by 31 December this year, we risk removing restrictions that currently protect holiday pay, safe limits for working hours and parental leave, which will become subject to amendment by a UK Government with an open ambition of deregulation.

The bill represents a significant undermining of devolution by allowing a minister of the UK Government of the day to act on policy areas that are devolved—importantly, without the consent of Scottish ministers or this Parliament. Does the cabinet secretary agree that the democratic deficit that Scotland faces is not a new phenomenon and that it is yet more stark evidence that, right now, Scotland’s people need the right to choose the people who they trust to navigate us out of this Brexit chaos?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I agree with Elena Whitham. Recent events demonstrate more clearly than ever the democratic deficit that Scotland experiences under Westminster control. Using Brexit as a pretext to undermine the fundamental principles of devolution, the UK Government has taken forward legislation without the consent of the Scottish Parliament on seven occasions. Through Westminster regulations that were made by UK ministers unilaterally, it has taken powers to change devolved powers; it has rushed through, without consent, legislation that constrains devolved competences; and it has taken new powers to spend money for devolved purposes in Scotland.

Under current arrangements, the UK House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords could change the powers of the Scottish Parliament or even abolish it, at any time. The opportunities of independence stand in stark contrast to the damage that has been created by Brexit.

Stephanie Callaghan (Scottish National Party, Uddingston and Bellshill)

Does the minister agree that not only does the so-called Brexit freedoms bill threaten our rights and the environment

but its unfettered nature will also act as an unwelcome intervention for Scotland’s businesses at a time when they need the economic security of good and stable governance?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I agree that the bill threatens to remove the rights and high standards, including standards of environmental protection, that the people of Scotland have become used to. It will allow legislation to be amended or sunsetted without the consultation and parliamentary scrutiny that good and stable governance requires. Added to that, the sunset date of 2023 introduces an entirely unrealistic timeframe that will force businesses to comply with new legislation while struggling with the consequences of Covid, the economic crisis and the consequences of Brexit. That is why we have repeatedly called on the UK Government to abandon its completely unnecessary and ideologically driven bill.

Museum and Gallery Sector (Cost of Living)

Claire Baker (Labour, Mid Scotland and Fife)

5. To ask the Scottish Government what steps are being taken to support the museum and gallery sector during the cost of living crisis. (S6O-01448)

Neil Gray (Scottish National Party, Airdrie and Shotts)

I understand how deeply the sector has been affected by rising energy costs and the cost of living crisis, which have come just as it is beginning to recover from the pandemic.

The Scottish Government is in close communication with Museums Galleries Scotland to fully understand the challenges that museums and galleries face. As a result, we agreed that Museums Galleries Scotland should repurpose the grants that it receives from the Scottish Government into a new resilience fund. The fund will support museums to build their resilience through activity that will reduce costs, increase income and support communities. The new fund was announced on 12 October with a deadline of 17 November for expressions of interest.

Claire Baker (Labour, Mid Scotland and Fife)

In recent evidence to the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee, the cabinet secretary spoke of museums and galleries providing warm spaces for communities. They can only do that if they are able to remain open.

I note that, in his response to Sarah Boyack earlier this week, the minister advised that engagement is taking place with Creative Scotland to support organisations in the arts and culture sector that are facing immediate challenges. I recognise that he has spoken about a new resilience fund today, but is he confident that that will meet the needs of the sector? We know that National Galleries of Scotland has announced closures and that the Filmhouse in Edinburgh has recently closed. There are threats of venues being closed across the country. Is he confident that that money will be enough to get the sector through this winter?

Neil Gray (Scottish National Party, Airdrie and Shotts)

Just to be clear, we think that it is a damning indictment on where we are in the UK that energy-rich Scotland requires public buildings to be used for sharing warmth. People are facing a terrible situation.

We continue to engage with the culture sector about the extreme challenges that it faces. The situation highlights the folly of the UK Government cutting its Covid recovery funding before a meaningful recovery had taken place in the sector. We are seeing the implications of its approach now.

We will work with the museums and galleries sector, as well as others in the culture sector, to do everything that we can to continue that recovery. However, we cannot hide from the fact that we face an incredibly challenging period ahead.

Liam Kerr (Conservative, North East Scotland)

The impact of the cost of living crisis on our culture sector was starkly highlighted when Aberdeen’s iconic Belmont Filmhouse closed its doors. The Scottish Government was warned weeks ago what was coming and it did nothing.

This morning, the people of Aberdeen heard accusations that there is a “naivety” about cinemas and the wider arts, and they were stunned to hear the cabinet secretary’s bizarre claims in Iceland that all is going swimmingly.

If the minister genuinely wants to engage, will he join me and other local representatives in a formal meeting with the Belmont backers and Aberdeen City Council to thrash out a rescue for the Belmont cinema?

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Minister, we are straying into wider culture sector issues with that question, but I presume that you are happy to respond to Mr Kerr’s point?

Neil Gray (Scottish National Party, Airdrie and Shotts)

Yes. I thank Liam Kerr for bringing up that issue. First, his characterisation of Scottish Government action is not true. Secondly, I must be careful about what I say about the Centre for the Moving Image, because there are legal considerations to take account of as a result of the administration process. However, I guarantee to him that colleagues in Government, Creative Scotland and Screen Scotland are working hard to find a solution.

I would be more than happy to meet Liam Kerr—within the confines of the legal parameters that I have mentioned. In all scenarios, we want those important cultural institutions to continue to thrive. We know that the Belmont in Aberdeen is significant not just culturally but economically. The same is true of the Filmhouse in Edinburgh. We will do everything that we can to ensure that we protect those institutions as best as possible.

However, I must say that Liam Kerr’s colleagues in London, whom I presume he still supports, would wish to look at the matter from a UK-wide perspective. These issues are not isolated to Scotland; they are UK wide. His UK Government has a responsibility to stop austerity and to ensure that our cultural centres are properly supported.

Alasdair Allan (Scottish National Party, Na h-Eileanan an Iar)

During what he has acknowledged to be an anxious time for many in the museums and galleries sector, does the minister agree that the issues are compounded for many smaller museums and galleries in particular, given the Tories’ cruel and reckless austerity policies, which presumably mean that fewer people have the means to visit a gallery in the first place?

Neil Gray (Scottish National Party, Airdrie and Shotts)

Yes, I agree with that. The scenario that our cultural institutions face is challenging. It includes rising energy costs and inflation, over which the UK Government has clear responsibility. However, its actions have made the problems worse in recent weeks, affecting the money in people’s pockets and reducing their spending power in the local economy.

The situation is very challenging. We will do what we can within our resources to respond to that as best as possible. However, there is no doubt that the UK Government has a clear responsibility in this area and to support cultural institutions. That then has a knock-on impact on the finances that we have to respond to the crisis.

International Work (Arctic Circle Assembly)

Bill Kidd (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Anniesland)

6. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its international work, following the constitution secretary’s attendance at the recent Arctic Circle assembly. (S6O-01449)

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

The Scottish Government continues to engage with international partners to encourage cultural, economic and policy collaborations that attract investments and create domestic opportunities for people in Scotland.

My visit to Iceland for the Arctic Circle assembly allowed me to promote Scotland’s expertise in relation to challenges and ambitions that we share with our Arctic neighbours, including in relation to decarbonisation, energy solutions and rural wellbeing. It was hugely worth while to attend the assembly to present an update on the Scottish Government’s Arctic co-operation and to hold bilateral meetings with the Prime Minister and foreign minister of Iceland; ministers from Greenland, the Faroe Islands, Canada and Singapore; and delegates from the United States, Norway and Japan. The assembly hosted the largest-ever contingent from Scotland. I put on the record my appreciation to President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson for organising the Arctic Circle assembly.

Bill Kidd (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Anniesland)

Given the changing international security threat due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and increases to maritime routes in the Arctic circle because of warming seas, does the cabinet secretary agree that there must be consideration of new maritime security threats in the Norwegian Sea and the North Sea? Will that, alongside our Arctic circle-related climate commitments, be a matter of focus with our partners in the new Nordic office?

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

The exponential pace at which the Arctic region is warming is a matter of deep concern. As one of the first countries in the world to declare a climate emergency, we recognise the vital importance of taking immediate action domestically and encouraging ambitious measures internationally.

The Scottish Government is fully aware of Scotland’s key geostrategic position as the world’s most northerly non-Arctic nation. As new shipping routes become viable, we are ideally located, and have clear credentials, to become a subarctic maritime transport and logistics hub.

The receding sea ice in the Arctic creates threats as well, which we must be alert to. At a time when the Arctic is the focus of renewed geopolitical and security considerations, it is crucial that we develop a full understanding of the threats that our communities and critical infrastructure could face.

Dumbarton (Commemoration of 800 Years of Royal Burgh Status)

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

7. To ask the Scottish Government what activities it plans to hold to commemorate 800 years since Dumbarton became a royal burgh. (S6O-01450)

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I hope that Jackie Baillie is pleased when I say that the Scottish Government recognises the significance of the 800th anniversary of Dumbarton becoming a royal burgh. Being able to connect with local history is important for the health and wellbeing of Scotland’s communities, as well as for our national identity. I am pleased that this year’s rock of ages event, themed for Dumbarton 800, was such a successful part of the official celebrations. Historic Environment Scotland, which worked on that project with the anniversary organisers, are happy to explore future events with West Dunbartonshire Council and the community.

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

I take it from that response that there is nothing going on now. I have written to the cabinet secretary about this before. Dumbarton castle is closed and covered in scaffolding. The rock of ages event had its second day cancelled due to the weather. The 800-year celebration amounted to a tannoy announcement.

This would be a hugely significant event for any town, but the Scottish Government does not appear to want to celebrate it.

I am sure that the cabinet secretary does not wish to imply that there is any snub to the good people of Dumbarton, so let me give him another chance to say what he will do.

Angus Robertson (Scottish National Party, Edinburgh Central)

I am pleased that

the inspection of Dumbarton castle is now complete. I understand that Historic Environment Scotland is preparing a technical report ahead of the November community engagement event, which I understand that Jackie Baillie and the chief executive of Historic Environment Scotland will be attending. That review will result in decisions being made around the opening, or partial opening, of the site, and any repair work that the review identifies will be scheduled into the wider, high-level masonry repair programme.

Scottish Event Campus (Investment)

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

8. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on any discussions it has had with the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow regarding capital investment in the facility. (S6O-01451)

Neil Gray (Scottish National Party, Airdrie and Shotts)

Due to emerging budgetary pressures, of which I have already spoken, and the reassessment of budget priorities as set out in the resource spending review, we are unable to commit to support via a capital finance package the expansion of the conference centre.

There have therefore been no specific discussions on capital investment in the SEC since the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture met Peter Duthie on 27 April. We continue to engage with the SEC and others on how the national event strategy review can build on the industry’s success and deliver on Government priorities.

Paul Sweeney (Labour, Glasgow)

I must say that that is a disappointing response from the Government. Investment in SEC expansion is critical for Glasgow’s economy, as campus activity seeds footfall in local hospitality venues, increases taxi and transport demand and supports businesses across the region. I previously asked the cabinet secretary whether the Government would support that capital financing, but he indicated that the discussion with the SEC management had been paused.

This is a time for progressing and not pausing investment, lest we see further decline in Glasgow’s economy—most recently, it has been marked by the failure to secure the Eurovision contest. Will the cabinet secretary and minister therefore reconsider their decision to pause the discussions, in the interests of stimulating Glasgow’s economy, ensuring that we get economic growth and securing the international competitiveness of the SEC for conferences and major events?

Neil Gray (Scottish National Party, Airdrie and Shotts)

I absolutely agree with Paul Sweeney on the importance of the SEC not just to the Glasgow economy but to the overall Scottish economy. I had a limited involvement in Glasgow’s bid for Eurovision, of which we were very supportive, so I was personally sad to hear that it will not take place there. We absolutely recognise the importance of the SEC. Unfortunately, our budgetary situation means that very difficult decisions have had to be taken. We will continue to have discussions with the SEC and other bodies across the major events sector through the review. I encourage Mr Sweeney to engage in that so that his interest and that of the constituents who he represents can be put forward.

Justice and Veterans

The Deputy Presiding Officer

The next portfolio is justice and veterans. I remind members that questions 2 and 7 are grouped together and that I will take any supplementaries on those questions once they have both been answered. If a member wishes to request a supplementary, they should press their request-to-speak button during the relevant question or, if they are online, enter the letter R in the chat function. I again make a plea for succinct questions and answers, so that we can get in as many members as possible.

Release from Custody (Support for Women)

Jackie Dunbar (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Donside)

1. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to support women being released from custody to reintegrate back into their communities. (S6O-01452)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

The Scottish Government and the Scottish Prison Service are committed to ensuring that women who leave custody receive the support that they need to integrate successfully. The new female estate, which includes two innovative community custody units, supports that commitment and is underpinned by a revised strategy for women in custody, which is gender specific and trauma informed. The CCUs support a change to rehabilitation of women in custody by linking them to local services and preparing them for their eventual return to the community. We also provide £1.4 million per year to fund Shine, which is the national third sector partnership that provides support to women leaving custody and remand.

Jackie Dunbar (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Donside)

It is important that we acknowledge that recidivism is a risk among those who have offended and spent time in custody. What steps is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that women who are released from custody do not end up back in custody again?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

As I am sure the member knows, there is not one specific step on its own that can prevent reoffending or that will allow an individual to reintegrate into the community successfully. There needs to be a holistic approach across justice services and wider public services. It is important to recognise that short custodial sentences are less successful at reducing reoffending, and that the presumption against short sentences and the continued development of bail supervision are helping to prevent women from being taken into custody unless that is absolutely necessary.

As I said, the SPS has established a new strategy for women who are in custody, which will support the development of women’s agency through opportunities to make choices. All plans, interventions, approaches and activities will be based on sound evidence and be designed to boost the factors that are known to promote desistance from crime and to improve life chances.

Katy (Labour, West Scotland)

What discussions have there been with domestic abuse specialists about the engagement with women who are being released from custody?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

There have been substantial discussions with specialists and with the organisations that are most closely involved in that sector—the member will know the organisations to which I am referring. Over and above that, when the SPS established the two units, it took into account international and academic evidence and the best possible advice on how to properly effect rehabilitation. The units are unique—there are the only two in the United Kingdom, and they are both in Scotland. In my view, they represent the way forward and will allow women to reintegrate into society much more effectively and in a way that reduces future crime. I therefore hope that the units have the support of all members.

Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 (Retailers)

Paul McLennan (Scottish National Party, East Lothian)

2. To ask the Scottish Government what steps have been taken to ensure that retailers are aware of and comply with the measures in the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 that came into effect on 10 October. (S6O-01453)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

The measures that commenced this month will enhance community safety over the fireworks season. As part of the implementation of the measures, the Scottish Government has engaged and shared guidance with the Scottish Retail Consortium, the Scottish Grocers Federation, supermarkets and industry representative bodies. The importance of involving retailers during the roll-out of new measures in the 2022 act is recognised.

In addition, the Scottish Government is funding trading standards to undertake a fireworks enforcement project with retailers. That follows on from a similar project last year to support the implementation of new regulations, and it involves engaging with retailers on the measures that are being introduced through the 2022 act as well as reinforcing existing legislation.

Paul McLennan (Scottish National Party, East Lothian)

I am glad to hear that there is joint working between the Scottish Government and retailers to ensure compliance with the new measures. What steps are the Scottish Government taking to ensure that there is wider public awareness across the country of the impact that fireworks can have on people and animals, and of the new measures that commenced earlier this month?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

I am pleased to advise the member that the Scottish Government, with its partners, has once again launched the three public awareness-raising campaigns to promote the safe and responsible use of fireworks. Key information on the new proxy purchase offence is being integrated into each of the campaigns to ensure that people are aware of the new offence. We have also worked with stakeholders, including Police Scotland, to share messages across our social media channels on the new statutory aggravation for attacks using fireworks against emergency service workers. The campaigns are running in partnership with partners including the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, Crimestoppers and trading standards in order to promote the safe and responsible use of fireworks and to cover a wide range of media, including social media and radio, as well as posters and leaflets in retail outlets that sell fireworks.

Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 (Community Safety)

Gillian Martin (Scottish National Party, Aberdeenshire East)

7. To ask the Scottish Government how it anticipates that the Fireworks and Pyrotechnic Articles (Scotland) Act 2022 will make this year’s bonfire night safer for communities. (S6O-01458)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

I highlight the two

key provisions that came into effect this month. One makes it an offence for adults to purchase fireworks on behalf of, or make them available to, under-18s in order to strengthen the protection of young people and communities. The other provision relates to a statutory aggravation for court sentencing when fireworks have been used to attack emergency service workers. That clearly signals that such vile behaviour will be firmly addressed.

To share the public safety message with communities, our awareness-raising campaigns have been updated, and the Scottish Government is working alongside a range of partners, including Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, to actively engage and prepare ahead of bonfire night.

Gillian Martin (Scottish National Party, Aberdeenshire East)

It is great to hear that there is movement in this area, because I get an awful lot of correspondence about the issue from people in my constituency.

I welcome our support for emergency service workers as they face aggravated attacks during this period. Will the cabinet secretary join me in condemning such attacks ahead of bonfire night? Which provisions in the 2022 act will be rolled out in time for next year’s bonfire night celebrations?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

We have demonstrated that we are committed to progressing positive change for communities by acting as swiftly as possible. I reassure the member that that approach will continue as we implement the remaining measures in the 2022 act, as she has asked us to do.

It is important that I join the member in condemning, in the strongest possible terms, attacks against our hard-working emergency service workers, on whom we often rely in extreme circumstances. It is unacceptable—in fact, it is incomprehensible—that a minority of people choose to act in such a vile manner towards people who are dedicated to keeping our communities and each and every one of us safe.

The member will know that specific laws are already in place to protect emergency service workers, but I hope that the new statutory aggravation for offences involving attacks using fireworks against those workers provides reassurance that the Government is committed to such cases being dealt with robustly, with penalties that reflect the serious nature of such offending.

I take this opportunity to thank our emergency service workers and all our partners for the vast amount of work that has been undertaken in preparation for bonfire night. I commit to writing to the member with more information about the implementation timetable for the other parts of the 2022 act.

Jamie Greene (Conservative, West Scotland)

I thank the Government for accepting the amendment in my name that provided for the aggravation in the bill. That was an important message to send to the public.

However, during the passage of the bill, the Government said that there was little evidence to suggest that the bill would lead to an increase in black market activity. Last week, trading standards officers in Glasgow confiscated 250 fireworks from a barber shop in the city. The fireworks were poorly stored and were clearly putting lives in danger. Was the assessment of the black market during the passage of the bill not somewhat naive given that context? What is the Government doing to crack down on the potential growth of the black market in firework sales?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

I have outlined some of the actions that we are taking with our partners through trading standards, Police Scotland and others to ensure that we do so. It is not possible to say now, in the early stages of the implementation of the act, that it has been proved that the assessment of black market activity was wrong. I am aware of the case that Jamie Greene has talked about, which we condemn. However, we have to see how the regulations work out over time.

As I have said, much of the public awareness raising that is going on will continue to be built on, which hopefully will drive out and make more socially unacceptable the kind of black market activity to which Jamie Greene refers.

Armed Forces and Veterans’ Families (Support)

Graeme Dey (Scottish National Party, Angus South)

3. To ask the Scottish Government what action it can take to support armed forces and veterans’ families in Scotland during the cost of living crisis, in light of recent reports that almost 3,000 serving military personnel in the United Kingdom are reliant on universal credit. (S6O-01454)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

The Scottish Government is undertaking an emergency budget review to assess all opportunities to redirect additional resources to those people who are most in need, to reduce the burdens on business and to stimulate the Scottish economy.

Further support is available to the armed forces community—I know that the member will be aware of that, given how instrumental he was in ensuring that it happened—including the £500,000 provided annually through the Scottish veterans fund, which launched earlier this month. This year, the fund prioritises projects that offer support to those veterans who are affected by the cost of living crisis.

We will continue to engage with stakeholders across the community more widely to develop our response.

Graeme Dey (Scottish National Party, Angus South)

It is not just the fact that nearly 3,000 serving personnel have to turn to universal credit to get by that betrays the Tories’ contempt for our armed forces but the standard of accommodation that is provided to them. RM Condor in my constituency has long been the subject of commentary on the quality of accommodation that is available to the Royal Marines there. Contrary to recent media reports, I understand that the Ministry of Defence has no plans to address that matter.

Does the cabinet secretary agree that it is long past time that we saw proper investment in the accommodation element of military facilities in Scotland to bring them up to an acceptable standard?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

I agree with the member. The Scottish Government recognises the dedication of the men and women who are willing to serve their country. They and their families rightly deserve quality accommodation that meets their needs. The MOD has a budget of £48 billion, and it is failing to meet its responsibility to address the matter.

Around 3,000 service personnel in Scotland accessing universal credit—38,000 is the figure for the rest of the UK—will come as a shock to many people. Armed forces having to draw down on universal credit is a scandal. In Scotland, we at least have the 19p tax, which ensures that people in the armed forces in Scotland at that level pay less tax than they do in the rest in the UK, as is the case for most people in Scotland. However, that is a scandal. If the MOD wants to seriously address the issues of recruitment and retention, and respect for our armed forces, it should pay proper wages.

In relation to accommodation, the member will know that I am familiar with the base that he has talked about. The personnel that we have on that base deserve proper, decent accommodation and the MOD should address that as soon as possible.

Community Policing (South Scotland)

Emma Harper (Scottish National Party, South Scotland)

4. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the provision of community policing, including community safety patrols, in the South Scotland region. (S6O-01455)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

The member will know that the deployment of police resources, including community patrols, is a matter for Police Scotland, which also works closely with local authorities on preventing and tackling a range of issues, including antisocial behaviour, in their geographical areas.

Supporting Police Scotland to keep our communities safe remains a priority for the Government. Policing services have been maintained and improved, and we have invested more than £10 billion in policing since the creation of the single service, in 2013.

Emma Harper (Scottish National Party, South Scotland)

At my recent surgery in Summerhill, in Dumfries, I heard concerns from local residents about what they believe to be increased levels of antisocial behaviour in that area. We know that engagement and education are the best ways to prevent crime and antisocial behaviour in the first place, so I have called for a multi-agency meeting with the police, the housing authority and the community safety team to address constituents’ concerns.

How is the Scottish Government supporting the police and the community safety team? Can the cabinet secretary urge them to engage with me and with the local residents on those matters?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

The Scottish Government recognises that everyone has the right to be, and to feel, safe in their own community, which is why we are committed to tackling all forms of antisocial behaviour. Police Scotland and the local authorities lead on interventions and have a range of options available to them in tackling antisocial behaviour.

We recognise that no single approach will tackle all antisocial behaviour. That is why we support a suite of activities, which includes antisocial behaviour orders and fixed-penalty notices alongside diversionary and early intervention activities. I was heavily involved in that area when I was a council leader, and I know that different approaches can be taken in different local authority areas.

For our part, we are committed to ensuring that all agencies have the powers and resources that they need. We are always willing—as, I am sure, are the police—to discuss any changes that could improve prevention and to respond to antisocial behaviour with all relevant bodies.

Antisocial Behaviour (Bus Network)

Willie Coffey (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

5. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will consider additional measures to deal with the reported increase in antisocial behaviour, including on the bus network. (S6O-01456)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

As I mentioned in my previous answer, everyone has the right to be, and to feel, safe in their community or when using public transport. Broadly, reported antisocial behaviour has been in decline over the past decade, but we know that, when issues arise, those can have a very serious impact for many people in our communities. That is why we continue to support activity to prevent antisocial behaviour wherever it occurs.

As I mentioned, no single approach will tackle all antisocial behaviour. That is why we will continue to ensure that partners can call on a range of measures, including the ones that I mentioned, such as the use of

antisocial behaviour orders and fixed-penalty notices,

as well as diversionary and preventative activities.

I fully support Police Scotland in its attempts to take appropriate and proportionate action in response to reported incidents, and I fully support its continued work, in partnership with transport operators and local authorities, to continue to make public transport safe for passengers and staff.

Willie Coffey (Scottish National Party, Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley)

The cabinet secretary will be aware of the incidents of antisocial behaviour that have occurred recently in Kilmarnock on the bus network and in the bus station, some of which have been extremely serious and have resulted in the bus station being closed.

What can the cabinet secretary do to help to tackle the problem and to liaise, where necessary, with other portfolios in Government to ensure that the public can travel in safety?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

I am aware of the incident in Kilmarnock to which Willie Coffey refers and was shocked by it. My thoughts are with the young man and his family at what must be an exceptionally difficult time for them.

Willie Coffey will appreciate that it is not appropriate for me to comment on a live case, but I understand that Police Scotland is treating the incident in question as an isolated incident and is maintaining a strong presence in and around the town centre.

I am also aware of the issues in East Ayrshire that have involved the bus network and the bus station, and I share the concerns that those issues must be causing the member and his constituents.

It is essential that all passengers are able to travel safely. We have been liaising with Police Scotland and the local authority, and I understand that an extensive partnership response is being deployed at a local level, which is being led by a multi-agency resilience group that involves a range of partners including the council, education, the police and transport authorities to address and tackle unacceptable behaviour.

The Scottish Government is, of course, open to considering all options for tackling antisocial behaviour. For example, I will raise the issue with those who are responsible for the bus pass scheme, to gather views on whether the option of withdrawing bus passes, which has been mentioned elsewhere, might present a solution.

That said, I am clear that the people who have been involved in such antisocial behaviour represent a very small number of individuals. We are absolutely clear that such incidents are not an indictment of the bus pass scheme as a whole and that the scheme has delivered and will continue to deliver many positive outcomes for people across Scotland.

Russell Findlay (Conservative, West Scotland)

Glasgow Chamber of Commerce has warned that free bus travel for under-22s is “certainly not helping” with antisocial behaviour, and there are reports of youths using buses to engage in violence and other criminality.

In the light of today’s stark and unprecedented budget warnings from Police Scotland, what reassurances can the cabinet secretary give to the public?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

I have mentioned a number of ways in which partnership working, which I think is very important in tackling the issue, will be followed through.

In relation to the budget situation, it is worth remembering a couple of facts. People in Scotland are substantially less likely to experience crime than they were in 2007. There are far more police officers now than there were when we came into office, in 2007. Officers in Scotland are paid £5,000 a year more than their counterparts in England and Wales. Recently, it was reported that crime was at an all-time low since the 1970s, when records first began to be kept. In addition, it was announced yesterday that we had the lowest-ever recorded number of homicides.

It would be nice, on occasion, to hear one or two good things said about the police by Conservative members. Unfortunately, once again, that is not happening today, but the rest of us will give due credit to the police.

Human Trafficking and Exploitation

Joe FitzPatrick (Scottish National Party, Dundee City West)

6. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on its trafficking and exploitation strategy. (S6O-01457)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

Any form of human trafficking or exploitation is completely unacceptable. The Government continues to work closely with partners to tackle this horrific crime.

The fifth annual report on our trafficking and exploitation strategy is due for publication in early 2023. We marked anti-slavery day on 18 October by initiating a review of the strategy, beginning with the launch of a public survey on trafficking and exploitation in Scotland that is running until mid-December. Responses will shape the review, alongside engagement with partners across the strategy’s main action areas of identifying victims, disrupting perpetrators and addressing the underlying causes of exploitation.

Joe FitzPatrick (Scottish National Party, Dundee City West)

A recent operation in Dundee has brought

modern slavery charges against two men, and investigators have said that that could be just

“the tip of the iceberg”,

as highlighted by Alasdair Clark in

The Courier

. What support is the Scottish Government providing to Police Scotland to deal with this specialised area of criminal investigation and ensure that victims are provided with the necessary support?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

Work has been done on the matter over a number of years, including with, I think, two Lord Advocates, to make sure that as much protection as possible can be provided to the victims.

We are clear that commercial sexual exploitation, of which prostitution is one aspect, is a form of gendered violence, and we support our law enforcement agencies and third sector support agencies in working together to address it. The victim-centred approach fund includes significantly increased funding to support organisations. The Trafficking Awareness Raising Alliance and Migrant Help will share more than £6.35 million over the next three years to provide support and assistance to adult victims of trafficking and exploitation, and they are also providing over £900,000 to other organisations that provide support to those who are recovering from this horrific crime.

The Minister for Community Safety met key partners in Aberdeen yesterday to learn more about their approach to supporting individuals who are involved in prostitution, who often have complex underlying issues, in order to reduce their vulnerability.

Violence Against Women

Rhoda Grant (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

8. To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the steps it is taking to tackle violence against women. (S6O-01459)

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

In June 2022, a refreshed equally safe delivery plan was published, outlining the joint commitment of the Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to preventing and eradicating all forms of violence against women and girls and to tackling the underpinning attitudes that perpetuate it.

Through the justice portfolio and the victim-centred approach fund, we have invested £18.5 million in specialist advocacy support for survivors of gender-based violence, and the delivering equally safe fund is providing £19 million per year to support projects that are focused on early intervention and support.

It is only through fundamental societal change that women can be fully protected.

Rhoda Grant (Labour, Highlands and Islands)

Commercial sexual exploitation is recognised by the Scottish Government as violence against women, and it has been for many years. Although we have legislation on almost every other aspect of violence against women, which is very welcome, we have had no legislation to combat the harm that commercial sexual exploitation causes. When will the Scottish Government introduce such legislation?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

As has been referred to previously, the criminal justice reform bill in the programme for government will aim to improve the experience of victims in the justice system and will help to deliver reforms, building on the recent consultation on improving victims’ experience of the justice system.

The member will be aware that recommendations from Lady Dorrian’s review, on improving the management of sexual offence cases, will be addressed. That will include proposals for the use of, for example, a statutory right to anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases.

On a related matter, the member will know that we intend to abolish the not proven verdict. That and a number of other workstreams that the minister is involved with will continue. Of course, the possibility of further legislation will also be considered.

Katy (Labour, West Scotland)

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests.

In a debate on booking office closures and staffing levels on the railways, the cabinet secretary for transport committed to a review of women’s safety on public transport. Will the cabinet secretary for justice ensure that his department feeds into the review of what measures are needed to deal with antisocial behaviour and violence against women on public transport?

Keith Brown (Scottish National Party, Clackmannanshire and Dunblane)

I have had preliminary discussions with the minister responsible. As Katy Clark will be aware, the link would be with the British Transport Police, which—she is quite right—is a justice function. I am happy to continue to engage with the minister to see how we can make sure that women and girls, along with everybody, are safe on public transport, w

hich relates back to previous questions as well.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

That concludes portfolio questions on justice and veterans. I will allow a short pause for front-bench teams to move position.

National Health Service (Winter Support)

Liam McArthur (Liberal Democrat, Orkney Islands)

The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-06437, in the name of Jackie Baillie, on supporting the national health service in winter. I invite members who wish to participate in the debate to press their request-to-speak buttons now or as soon as possible.

I call Jackie Baillie to speak to and move the motion for around six minutes.

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

I received an email at 8 pm last night. It was from a man who had taken his mother to the Queen Elizabeth university hospital with chest pains. He told me that a member of staff had just come into the packed waiting room to announce the following:

“There is an 8-hour wait to be initially reviewed. There are 14 ambulances waiting to be processed. If your issue is not life threatening, go home and call your GP tomorrow.”

He went on to say:

“The SNP and the current, not-fit-for-purpose health minister, are running this country into the ground.”

Those were his words, not mine, but there is no mistaking the anger—and that is not an isolated incident. Thousands of people are waiting more than eight hours every week across Scotland.

Joe FitzPatrick (Scottish National Party, Dundee City West)

Will the member take an intervention?

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

No.

Those delays have the most serious of consequences. The Royal College of Emergency Medicine tells us that delays in accident and emergency lead to worse outcomes and, ultimately, cost lives.

The NHS stands on the brink of a humanitarian crisis. The hard-working staff are doing their very best, but they are exhausted. They get angry when the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care does not hear what they are saying, and they are in despair at the lack of support for them and for their patients.

Maybe the health secretary will listen to the British Medical Association, which has said that the system

“just doesn’t work properly anymore—staffed by people on their knees and genuinely at the brink of what they can cope with”

and that

“some honesty from our politicians on the scale of the challenge will help with this—and then finally we may start to address the need to make sure our NHS is sustainable for the future.”

However, the complacency in the Scottish National Party amendment suggests that the health secretary’s fingers are well and truly in his ears.

What about the Royal College of Emergency Medicine? It has said that many of the components of the SNP’s winter resilience plan

“will not be in place to prevent further harm to patients and staff this winter.”

How about the view from the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh? It tells us that the solution lies in properly funding social care in order to tackle delayed discharge and therefore free up hospital beds. Again, the health secretary is deaf to the solutions, because he knows better than the health experts.

His winter resilience plan has no new resources. That is right—not a single penny extra. All of the money has been pre-announced, some of it more than 11 months ago. We know that social care has been underfunded for more than a decade, and the health secretary’s repackaged, reheated and recycled funding announcement is a pathetic excuse for urgent action. In fact, he is currently raiding the budgets of general practitioners and health and social care partnerships at a time when they need the money the most.

But it gets worse. The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities tells me that, despite its asking, the health secretary has provided no detailed plan about what needs to be done in social care to help with the impending winter crisis. There has been not one single iota of detail—and winter is here.

I have been in Parliament for 23 years and I can say, without fear of contradiction, that Humza Yousaf is absolutely the worst health secretary since devolution.

Let us prove that—let us look at his predecessors. Under Nicola Sturgeon, in October 2011, 95.9 per cent of people were seen within four hours at accident and emergency. Under Alex Neil, the figure in October 2013 was 93.9 per cent. [

Interruption.

]

No, no—I am praising SNP ministers, so SNP members may want to listen. Under Shona Robison, the figure in October 2015 was 91 per cent. Under Jeane Freeman, the figure in October 2020 was 89.6 per cent—let me remind members that that was eight months into the same pandemic on which the current health secretary blames all his failings. Our missing-in-action health secretary presides over the record low of 64 per cent.

Waits of more than eight hours and 12 hours at A and E are at record highs. Literally thousands of patients—more than 3,000—have waited more than eight hours and 1,300 have waited more than 12 hours in the past week alone. That means that as many as 37 people could have lost their lives this week because of delays.

Patients wait on trolleys, get intravenous drugs administered in corridors, which is not safe, and sleep in chairs overnight. That is the new normal in accident and emergency. When Jeane Freeman was in charge back in October 2020, no more than 350 people—a fraction of the current figure—in any week during the month waited more than eight hours to be seen. That is the difference.

Finally, I turn to doctors, nurses and other NHS workers who are the backbone of our NHS. The health secretary is fond of telling us that the NHS has record levels of staff, but he fails to tell us that they are coping with record levels of demand and are doing so with record levels of vacancies—there are almost 7,000 nursing vacancies alone. There is a critical shortage of GPs and other allied professionals. Patient safety is being compromised on a regular basis, and there have been successive years of failure to workforce plan.

The latest pay offer helps the lowest paid the most, but for many skilled and experienced nurses the pay offer is less than the 5 per cent that was previously promised. Nurses’ pay has declined by 17 per cent in real terms, and inflation is now at 10 per cent. That is not a fair pay deal, and nurses in Scotland are now being balloted on strike action.

Our NHS is on its knees. The health secretary has a choice, but doing nothing is not a choice. He needs to stop people needlessly dying this winter. His choice is to set out a clear plan to end waiting times of more than eight hours, because this is about saving lives, and if he cannot do that, frankly, he must resign.

I move,

That the Parliament is deeply concerned that record numbers of patients are waiting over eight and 12 hours in A&E on a weekly basis; acknowledges that hospital capacity continues to be constrained by thousands of bed days lost due to delayed discharge; recognises the tireless work of the NHS staff who care for patients in increasingly difficult and safety critical situations; notes that the Scottish Ministers have not yet resolved the nurses’ and NHS staff pay claim risking industrial action during the winter period; considers the Scottish Government’s NHS Recovery Plan and Winter Plan to be inadequate with the new interim targets to reduce waiting times being missed and no additional funding for the impending winter crisis, and calls for the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to either set out a clear plan to end waiting times of more than eight hours ahead of winter, or to resign.

Humza Yousaf (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Pollok)

I am eager to respond in the debate, and to outline the NHS’s continuing recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

No one in the Government—not I, nor my colleagues in the seats behind me—denies that the NHS is under significant pressure: of course it is. However, for Labour to lodge a motion about NHS pressures, and not to include one single solitary word about Covid and the pandemic demonstrates that it is Jackie Baillie and her party who have their fingers in their ears, and not the Government.

The pandemic is the biggest shock that our NHS has ever faced in its 74-year existence.

Alex Cole-Hamilton (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Western)

Will the member take an intervention?

Humza Yousaf (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Pollok)

I will not; I am sure that the member will have his moment.

I have no doubt that the NHS had challenges pre-pandemic, but for Labour not to recognise that Covid has been the biggest shock that the NHS has faced is frankly burying its head in the sand.

Let us remember: as we speak, more than 800 people in our hospitals are suffering from the effects of the virus. People are still dying and families are grieving due to loss caused by Covid. Any realistic and pragmatic discussion of the NHS in Scotland cannot simply cast aside the impact of the pandemic, because it is central to the challenges that we face. That is why a successful Covid and flu vaccination programme is central to our recovery, and I thank our staff who are in involved in that.

The NHS will not recover in weeks—as Jackie Baillie demanded that it should—or even months; it will take years.? That is why our £1 billion recovery plan is predicated on five years of substantial investment and dedicated reform. I am committed to that recovery, and taking care of our workforce is central to it.

As Jackie Baillie referred to, during the past week, we offered our NHS staff a record pay rise of £2,205 this year—which is an average uplift of 7 per cent—to help tackle the cost of living crisis and retain staff during the tough winter months.?The offer means that the lowest paid would see a rise of more than 11 per cent and qualified nursing staff would receive up to 8.45 per cent. If agreed, the pay uplift will amount to almost half a billion pounds, which is the largest single-year pay offer ever given to agenda for change staff, and if it is accepted, it will mean that NHS staff in Scotland will be better paid than those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Once again, I give my thanks to those staff.

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

Will the member take an intervention?

Humza Yousaf (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Pollok)

Of course.

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

Can the cabinet secretary explain why NHS nurses are balloting for strike action, if he is being so generous?

Humza Yousaf (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Pollok)

Unions are still meeting to discuss the latest pay deal. I will let them have those discussions and my door will be open to try to prevent industrial action from taking place. I hope that when NHS members see the detail of the deal they will accept it.

It is untrue to say that there has been no progress on waiting times in the NHS during its recovery, even while we are in the midst of the pandemic. I announced the planned care waiting times targets in the summer, and the latest figures from Public Health Scotland show that 76 per cent—31 of 41—out-patient specialties had no or fewer than 10 patients waiting more than two years, and that 60 per cent of in-patient and day case specialties had fewer than 10 patients waiting more than two years. That is demonstrable progress, and it is all thanks to our brilliant NHS staff.

There is no doubt that delayed discharge rates are too high. They create real challenges in the social care sector, and that is why one of the first things that I did when I came into this role was ensure not just one but two pay uplifts for adult social care staff. We know that there are challenges in the social care sector. Our care homes have been hit by a triple whammy of Brexit, the pandemic and high inflation and energy costs. Two out of three of those factors are, of course, a result of the Conservatives putting ideology above the interests of the country, and it is clear that our social care sector is paying the price.

On Tuesday, I met chief executives of local authorities and health boards and chief officers of health and social care partnerships from across Scotland, and we will do everything that we can to support them.

The pressures on accident and emergency departments are being driven by the pressures that I have already mentioned and by delayed discharges elsewhere in our hospitals, but we have put £50 million towards our urgent and unscheduled care collaborative programme. Although the current level of performance is not where I want it to be—and I agree entirely with the Royal College of Nursing and Jackie Baillie’s assessments that long waits harm patients—we will do everything that we can to take a whole-systems approach to reduce the pressures on A and E.

We must be frank that we face a very difficult winter ahead due to the cumulative pressure from the pandemic, flu and slips, trips and falls. Therefore, my focus, and that of the Government, will be to spend every single waking moment supporting our NHS and the staff who work in it.

In Scotland, we have the best paid NHS staff in the UK and more GPs per head, more dentists per head and more NHS front-line staff per head under this Government. Yes, challenges persist, but there are shoots of recovery.

Let me finish by acknowledging that although this winter will be one of the most difficult ones that our NHS has ever dealt with, I praise our NHS and social care staff for the incredible, compassionate care that they provide to the people of Scotland, day in and day out. I give them a promise that we will not just honour them with words, but through our deeds.

I move amendment S6M-06437.1, to leave out from “that record” to end and insert:

“about the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the health of the people of Scotland and on the operation of the National Health Service; acknowledges that, as a result, Scotland’s NHS and care services face deep pressures, with 884 patients with COVID-19 currently in hospital; recognises that, as a result of increases in inflation, the health budget is worth around £650 million less than in December 2021; notes that the £600 million Health and Social Care winter plan supports recruitment of 1,000 additional staff, and includes over £120 million to help health and social care partnerships expand care at home capacity; welcomes that, in the face of these challenges, the NHS has been steadily increasing activity levels; recognises the exceptional work of NHS staff through the pandemic and beyond, and that the NHS Agenda for Change pay offer would see the lowest paid staff in NHS Scotland getting an increase of over 11% and qualified nursing staff seeing an increase of up to 8.45%; further recognises that if the offer is accepted, an experienced porter will be paid up to £2,502 more than their counterparts in England and Wales; recognises that, similarly, an experienced paramedic and staff nurse will be paid up to £2,186 more than their counterparts in England and Wales, and understands that the £50 million investment in improving unscheduled care has addressing long waits as a key area of focus.”

Sandesh Gulhane (Conservative, Glasgow)

People are dying; they are dying avoidable deaths, and it will get worse during winter. Across the country, the Scottish Government continues to fail our Scottish national health service and our patients.

To be clear, that is not the fault of our hard-working clinical and support staff, who have gone beyond the call of duty and always will. However, those heroes really are at breaking point. The cabinet secretary should know that, and he would know it if he bothered to face the front line when he is on one of his well-documented PR drop-ins to one of our hospitals. The cabinet secretary just thanked and praised our staff, but he avoided Dr Moy in A and E when he went.

This debate is about responsibility and accountability, so let us consider the facts. Under the SNP, waiting times for A and E and cancer treatment are at their worst ever levels. In the second quarter of this year, more than one in 10 patients waited longer than 84 days to begin treatment, with one in 20 waiting 116 days. We even have one patient who was left 322 days before treatment began—and we are talking about cancer. As for routine treatments, over 7,000 people are languishing on in-patient waiting lists for more than two years, with the SNP breaking its promise to eradicate waits longer than 24 months by September.

While we are on the subject of broken promises, a near record number of patients are having their discharge from hospital delayed because there is no follow-on social care package in place and no space in residential care, yet the SNP promised to solve the problem of delayed discharge by the end of 2015.

The cabinet secretary is also failing our most vulnerable children. Over a quarter of young people referred to mental health services are not being seen within 18 weeks, yet the Government’s own target is to have 90 per cent of children seen by then.

I could go on, but I would run out of time. It is fair to say that there has been a catalogue of failures on the SNP’s watch. As I underscored in the Scottish Conservatives’ NHS debate last month, we have a record-breaking cabinet secretary; the trouble is that he is breaking the wrong kind of records. The First Minister and the cabinet secretary come to the chamber and make announcements, usually in the form of new spending plans. They are good—no; they are great—at spending taxpayers’ money, but they cannot deliver results or even get a squeaky-clean bill of health from the auditors.

For example, what happened following the September 2021 announcement of £10 million for long Covid support? Come May of this year, we found that the money would be spread over three years, with only £3 million being spent to start with, and we still do not know where that money is being spent. Let us not forget that, during that time, the number of Scots with long Covid rose from around 90,000 to 200,000, which is more than the population of Aberdeen.

It is just about headlines for the cabinet secretary. Winter is now fast approaching and it is plain to see that the SNP-Green Government is ill prepared. Its NHS recovery plan and winter plan are inadequate, and A and E waiting times alone are spiralling out of control.

We call on the cabinet secretary to go back to the drawing board and set out a clear plan to get our health services and patients through the next six months. We want to see more spending announcements with a clear target that can be audited. Patients—taxpayers—have a right to know how the Government is spending their money.

I should declare an interest—I am a practising NHS doctor.

I move amendment S6M-06437.2, to insert after “weekly basis,”:

“is equally concerned that cancer waiting times are at their worst level on record; expresses its disappointment at the Scottish Government’s failure to meet its target to end inpatient two-year treatment waits in most specialties; reminds the Scottish Government that it has never met its target to treat 90% of children with mental health issues within 18 weeks of referral; notes with concern the long ambulance waits being experienced across Scotland;”

Alex Cole-Hamilton (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Western)

I am grateful to my friend Jackie Baillie for securing time for this important debate in the chamber. It is a timely debate. I cannot remember a time when our NHS was in such a state or when our valiant doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals were under so much strain. Had the cabinet secretary taken my earlier intervention, I would have reminded him that this is not solely about the impact of the pandemic that we have just been through. In fact, former chief executive of NHS Scotland Paul Gray reminds us that this is a crisis that was years in the making; Covid just hastened its arrival. It is wrong for the cabinet secretary to say otherwise and it is offensive to the people who are bearing the cost of this Government’s negligence day in, day out.

As grateful as I am that we are having the debate, I cannot help but feel a depressing sense of déjà vu. It feels like groundhog day. Each time we have such debates, Opposition parties come to the chamber armed with the latest round of disastrous health and social care statistics and, each time, the Government responds with reference to the pandemic and vague promises to make things better; often, it just tries to blame things on everyone else. It is small wonder that the SNP and Green Government does not make time for such debates in its own parliamentary time.

It is impossible to overstate the crisis that is engulfing our health service. Everybody knows somebody who is on a waiting list or who is suffering, whether it is a partner who arrives home late after another brutal ward shift or an elderly parent who is forced to wait for hours on a hospital gurney or for weeks just to speak to their GP on the phone. The cabinet secretary’s NHS recovery plan and winter plan fall woefully short. The Government is already missing its interim waiting time targets. The plans contain nothing that will make a material difference ahead of the inevitable strain of winter—and the first frosts have not yet arrived.

The stakes are literally life and death. For more than a year, A and E waiting times have steadily risen, tragically resulting in hundreds of avoidable deaths this year alone, yet, last month, the SNP-Green Government voted down my party’s proposal to hold an inquiry into those avoidable emergency care deaths. That is reprehensible. The more apparent the cost of this Government’s incompetence becomes, the more it will try to detract attention from its failures and instead turn attention towards the mythical vagaries of Scottish independence, which I think is the root cause of ministerial disinterest here.

I remind the chamber that, during her keynote speech at the recent SNP conference, the First Minister mentioned the NHS just 11 times, in comparison with the 58 mentions she gave to breaking up the United Kingdom. She had nothing to say on social care, and do not get me started on long Covid. I associate myself with Dr Gulhane’s remarks. There are now more than 200,000 sufferers of that debilitating condition. It is perhaps the biggest mass disabling event since the first world war, and we are nowhere in dealing with it. We are spending twice as much on an independence referendum as we are on assisting those people. It is the same old story, and it does nothing to help beleaguered nurses and doctors, or the patients who are left abandoned in our A and E departments.

The impact of Government failure is felt right across health and social care. The devastating story that we heard from Jackie Baillie at the top of her remarks is a story told the country over: ambulances cannot get to people in time because they cannot discharge patients into emergency wards when they arrive because A and E is full to the rafters with patients who cannot be admitted into the wider hospital due to the lack of beds. On any given night, more than 1,000 people who are well enough to go home but too frail to do so without a social care package are languishing in Scottish hospitals. Even when the care packages are arranged, too often those in need are still being let down.

The blame does not lie with staff. For years, they have worked tirelessly and diligently under enormous physical and emotional strain, and their reward is unfair pay and unimaginable working conditions. Were the Liberal Democrats in government, we would support staff immediately with a burn-out prevention strategy and an NHS staff assembly to set national standards in order to get rid of the postcode lottery in social care.

This Government loves to talk about a far-off land where everything will be better, but it has neither the desire—

The Deputy Presiding Officer

You need to conclude, Mr Cole-Hamilton.

Alex Cole-Hamilton (Liberal Democrat, Edinburgh Western)

—nor the competence to make things better today. I say to the Government and to the cabinet secretary: either get it sorted or step out of the way to make room for someone who can.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

We now move to the open debate. I call Carol Mochan for up to four minutes.

Carol Mochan (Labour, South Scotland)

It has been a busy week for bad news across the UK, so, understandably, the Scottish Government was hoping that its own failings would drift under the radar. However, with winter approaching, we need to get serious, and quickly, about the significant problems with the Government’s management of our NHS. It is putting lives at risk. There is a crisis in A and E across Scotland and, quite frankly, the cabinet secretary has been missing in action for a great deal of it. He and a number of his predecessors have overseen years of poor workforce planning, cuts to hospital bed numbers in many areas and a consistent failure to recognise the approaching dangers of the underfunding and underresourcing of social care.

The situation beyond A and E is also desperately concerning. I have been helping one constituent who has been waiting for more than 80 weeks for arthroscopy surgery—80 weeks, cabinet secretary, in serious pain. I am advised that things are deteriorating by the day and that she is dependent on medication to get through the day. I have written to the cabinet secretary about that case, and he is unable to give that woman—and that family—any idea of when it might be possible for that vital operation to take place. I will say it again: that constituent has been waiting for 80 weeks.

It is whole families who suffer. While living with considerable pain, that woman struggles to support her child, often relying on her husband to do things that she would love to be involved with. The situation is worse than just the constant pain. Imagine how that family feels, when, for 80 weeks, they cannot do the things that they would wish to do with their daughter. We should all think about the physical pain and the mental distress. The chances of her situation improving seem to be dwindling with every passing day, as she waits for an appointment that seems as though it will never come. As I have said, the cabinet secretary is unable to offer anything to that woman.

These are the human stories behind the statistics—stories that do not even warrant a headline anymore, as they are so common. If the health secretary thinks that that is acceptable and, on top of that, cannot seem to do anything about A and E waiting times of more than eight hours going into winter—with some as high as 12 hours—it is reasonable to ask why he is still in his job.

This week, we have seen lots of politicians in London miraculously regain the jobs that they had lost, but the bar here seems to be so high that, no matter how often a minister fails, they will be kept in post. I dread to think what would happen to ordinary workers in this country if they made as many mistakes as this Administration has.

Waiting times are a massive concern for many of my constituents. Month after month, year after year, people are living with anxiety and concern about how they will get the treatment that they need. We must remember those personal stories.

We must also remember that hard-working hospital staff are under huge pressure every day, which causes them stress and anxiety as well. However, that seems to be one of those things that people in this Government just appear to accept as a force of nature. Nothing serious is ever done to address the problem; no actions are taken, and it just comes back around the next year. People—

Maree Todd (Scottish National Party, Caithness, Sutherland and Ross)

Actions are—

Carol Mochan (Labour, South Scotland)

The minister can shout all she likes, but what I am saying is true. These are true stories that members bring to the chamber to enable us to have a serious discussion with the cabinet secretary about how we move things forward.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

You need to conclude, Ms Mochan.

Carol Mochan (Labour, South Scotland)

People truly value our NHS, but what is going on is just not good enough. One in seven Scots are now stuck on NHS waiting lists. The cabinet secretary should sort it out or pass the responsibility to someone who can.

Gillian Martin (Scottish National Party, Aberdeenshire East)

Despite being the best-performing A and E departments in the UK, Scottish A and E departments are facing capacity issues, and not just in winter. I would like to put forward suggestions and thoughts based on conversations that I have had with clinicians.

Staff vacancies are the north-east’s biggest issue, and we have a worrying situation in GP services, with a number of surgeries in my constituency struggling to treat patients because they have so many unfilled posts. One of the impacts of that is that patients who would otherwise receive GP care resort to turning up at A and E, which puts even more pressure on the service. That is one of the reasons why I would like to see the ScotGEM programme being extended to include Grampian.

I note that the cabinet secretary has made a pay offer to nurses, and I hope that it is accepted, but there are pressures on other groups of our staff, too. A wide range of people in the NHS have advised me that they have concerns that too many GPs and consultants are retiring far too early. Just today I spoke to a consultant in NHS Grampian who is concerned that, because of tax and pensions implications, consultants as young as 40 are reducing their hours. A reduction in consultant capacity obviously impacts on A and E departments; I am concerned that that might also impact on measures that the Government puts in place to offer scheduled urgent appointments in hot clinics that are designed to relieve pressure on A and E departments.

If pensions arrangements are making staying on less attractive to people, that will impact on capacity. Our budgets are stretched and are finite, but we need to address any seemingly illogical contractual disincentives to working full time until retirement age. After all, we have invested in training those consultants.

On training, I recently hosted an event with the Royal College of Emergency Medicine at which I heard from an advanced clinical practitioner who pointed to the roll-out of more ACPs being vital to supporting emergency rooms. I ask the cabinet secretary what we can do, within the work of the urgent and unscheduled care collaborative, to facilitate that. I welcome the £50 million funding that has been used to put in place ways to reduce A and E waiting times, including offering alternatives to hospital-based treatment. However, we need to accept that there will always be a need for hospital-based treatment and that, in addition to getting more ACPs, we need to look at increasing postgraduate training places and targeting them at areas where we have the biggest recruitment challenges. I have been told that those areas are respiratory medicine, acute medicine and geriatrics.

I realise that, so far, my contribution to Labour’s debate about winter planning has pointed to long-term strategies. However, the measures that I have outlined would get us through not just this winter but all subsequent winters, and would also aid recovery from the toughest period that our NHS has ever known—not just because of Covid, but because of the tough recruitment environment that has been caused by Brexit, which is the elephant in the room that cannot be ignored. My Grampian NHS Board colleagues have consistently pointed to the damage that loss of freedom of movement has done to our NHS and social care systems. The Labour motion does not mention that, because it is to the party’s endless embarrassment that its leader does not care about taking us back into the EU common travel arrangements. Until that changes, Labour has zero credibility on workforce issues that affect our NHS. [

Interruption

.]

I have spoken before about how Labour always comes to the chamber with a list of demands, but no costed solutions. To date, Labour has made nearly £2.68 billion of social care demands, which I have here, but it does not have the first clue about how to fund them. However, today, Jackie Baillie has not even come forward with ideas for the A and E departments. Uncosted or not, there has not been a single idea from Jackie Baillie or Carol Mochan. [

Interruption

.]

I will make one final point. Frankly, the last two words of the Labour motion and Jackie Baillie’s speech are a disgrace. Every health secretary and every Government is dealing with the same issues, so grubby personal attacks like that are the worst thing about this place—

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Ms Martin, you need to conclude.

Gillian Martin (Scottish National Party, Aberdeenshire East)

They undermine the very idea of politics as a public service.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Before we proceed, I remind members again that time is tight and that you need to stick to your allocated speaking times. Members—particularly those on the front benches, but also those on the back benches—should not shout across the chamber from sedentary positions.

Tess White (Conservative, North East Scotland)

It feels like groundhog day. In September, Nicola Sturgeon told Parliament that she wanted to see immediate improvement in A and E waiting times, but for the third week in a row more than 3,000 patients waited for longer than eight hours to be seen in A and E, and 1,350 patients waited in pain and distress for more than 12 hours—not in hospital beds, but in waiting rooms and corridors. Those are shocking figures, not least because the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has repeatedly warned that such waits can lead to hundreds of avoidable deaths—each one of which is a tragedy.

The current chaos is just the tip of the iceberg, because the situation will only get worse as winter arrives. In September, well before the winter months, NHS Grampian in my region asked people to attend emergency departments only in life-threatening situations. Ambulances have been stacked outside Aberdeen royal infirmary and, because paramedics are treating patients in ambulances that are parked outside A and E doors for hours, the ambulances cannot be dispatched elsewhere.

However, the reality is that A and E waiting times are the symptom of a wider malaise that the SNP has presided over for years. Poor workforce planning and a failure to get a grip on delayed discharge mean that there are simply not enough staff and beds to care for patients. An elastic band can be stretched only so far, and we have reached breaking point.

It is abundantly clear that in order to help to prevent bed blocking we need more social care staff now, but the SNP has instead diverted hundreds of millions of pounds—or even billions, because the Scottish Government is not quite sure whether it is millions or billions—into the creation of a national care service that will not be up and running for another four years.

Meanwhile, cancer treatment waiting times are at their worst level on record, and waiting times for routine treatment continue to mount.

More than a quarter of children and young people are still not being seen by mental health services within 18 weeks, and people are having to wait hours—not minutes—for ambulances to arrive. With Humza Yousaf at the helm, our NHS is on its knees. With the resources that they have, NHS staff are working heroically to provide safe patient care. However, staff on the front line are telling us over and over that the system is simply not sustainable.

Just last month, nurses tried to share their concerns with the health secretary about their increasing workloads, their pay situation and patient safety. Shamefully, Humza Yousaf told them not to patronise him. My blood boiled when I heard that. My sister is a nurse, another is a midwife, and I speak to front-line staff every day, and that was just disgraceful. However, for Humza Yousaf, it was just another photo opportunity before retreating to self-congratulation and the platitudes of the SNP conference.

As the crisis that our NHS faces has gone from bad to worse, the Scottish Conservatives have called many times on the health secretary to completely rethink his NHS recovery plan, and we have urged him to go back to the drawing board on his NHS winter resilience plan. Enough distraction and deflection: Humza Yousaf needs to step up, because people’s lives are at stake.

Alex Rowley (Labour, Mid Scotland and Fife)

I have a few points to make in the short time that I have.

First, I welcome the fact that discussions are on-going and that another pay offer is on the table. Whether through that offer or a future one, I hope that we can reach an agreement, because the last thing that we need in our health service is industrial action.

I make the point to the health secretary that I have met front-line workers in health and social care, as well as local and national trade unions, and they have all stressed to me that it is not all about money; it is also about the massive pressure under which all the staff are currently working and are expected to work. We must address that in order to move forward.

I acknowledge the impact of Covid. I acknowledge that for whoever is in power, these are difficult times. I also acknowledge the impact of the disastrous Brexit. There are major difficulties for the NHS that we all face, but it is key that we have confidence that the Government has a grip of the issues and has plans that will operate to tackle the problems. This is the problem that I have: I do not see any evidence that such plans are in place. Indeed, when it comes to social care, I am not convinced that the Government has a handle at all on what needs to happen. That is the problem; I will say more about it.

I say first to the Scottish Tories that the reality is that the crisis in this country has been created in Downing Street. It is an economic crisis that will play out very badly. Last week, the

Daily Record

reported that 216 official heat banks have been opened, in addition to the 244 food banks that we have. If we are to go through this winter with people cold and freezing and unable to feed themselves, that will put massive pressure on our health service. The really difficult thing for me is that the Tories have tanked the economy but they have the nerve—

Tess White (Conservative, North East Scotland)

I think you’re in the wrong debate.

Alex Rowley (Labour, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Please dinnae stand there and shout. If you have something to say, say it.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Ms White! I have already told you.

Alex Rowley (Labour, Mid Scotland and Fife)

The Tories have the nerve to stand up and look into cameras with straight faces and say, “We’re gonnae have to cut public services”. I hope that this Parliament can unite to say that there should be no austerity when it comes to public services and that we will all join together to fight austerity. [

Applause

.]

I return to the Scottish Government and where it is at. Care homes are in crisis; we saw Robert Kilgour on the news last night talking about the massive pressures that they are under. That issue needs to be addressed, but it cannot be addressed by simply fleecing self-funders—people with more than £18,500 a year who have to pay for their own care. Right now, they are the only income source for the care homes and, sadly, the charges are increasing, against which there is no protection. That must be addressed.

With regard to social care itself, the inequality between those who work in the private sector and those who work in the public sector must be addressed: we cannot continue to ignore it. The Government’s national care service proposal is basically a national procurement service. That will not tackle the issues that we face right now. This morning, I looked at the responses to the consultation—

The Deputy Presiding Officer

You need to conclude, Mr Rowley.

Alex Rowley (Labour, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Everyone in that sector—all the professional bodies and people who use the sector—are warning the Government, so it must listen. People do not believe that the Government has a handle on the situation, so it must get a grip of it.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Thank you, Mr Rowley. I call Gillian Mackay. You have up to four minutes, Ms Mackay.

Gillian Mackay (Green, Central Scotland)

This will, once again, be one of the most difficult winters in the history of our NHS. We have a workforce that is already tired, rising Covid-related admissions and a backlog of delayed and more complex treatment. We also face a battle to reduce A and E waiting times.

As always, some health boards are doing better than others. In my region, NHS Forth Valley is continually at the top of the table for long waiting times. We must understand better why that is the case. We also need to support a sustained incremental improvement in waiting times rather than what we are seeing at the moment: bad statistics one week, a marked improvement the following week, and then the cycle repeating itself. That does not deliver for patients, and I am greatly concerned about the pressure that clinical teams are being put under to achieve lower waiting times when they are already stretched and tired.

Keeping people out of acute settings in the first place should always be the primary goal. At the start of this week, I attended a Marie Curie round-table discussion, in which I heard about the experiences of unpaid carers and the organisations that support them. We discussed the current issues that face those who care for loved ones at home.

An issue that was raised was access to NHS 24 for people with a terminal diagnosis. Carers and patients often look for guidance on whether the issue that they currently have needs acute care. However, because of the wait to be triaged, they often end up phoning for an ambulance or taking their loved one to A and E.

I believe that some health boards, as part of anticipatory care planning, provide specific pathways for those with a terminal diagnosis to get the information that they need. Given the number of people who want to die at home, I hope that the cabinet secretary will look into that issue as one way to prevent people from ending up at A and E unnecessarily.

I have previously raised the issue of the staffing of out-of-hours GP services. That hugely valuable service diverts people away from A and E and provides timely care. We must make that service an attractive option for GPs to work in.

In its briefing, the Royal College of General Practitioners highlighted its belief that people are unaware of how to effectively navigate health and social care services. Many things have changed over the pandemic. Some services are not delivered in the same way, and pathways might have changed. I hope that, especially over winter, effort can be put into ensuring that patients know where and when they can access the most appropriate care. For example, the pharmacy first model will be able to help with minor ailments over the winter, which will potentially reduce the impact on GPs.

We should acknowledge those in different parts of community care who are working extremely hard to ensure that their patients remain well. District nurses are doing home visits, changing bandages and monitoring people’s conditions; school nurses are dealing with a vast range of issues across multiple schools; and health visitors are providing advice and guidance for new parents. They are all contributing to the system, as are the brilliant allied health professionals and support staff, without whom the NHS simply would not work.

We need to ensure that staff can take their breaks, that they have time for peer support, and that they can access wellbeing measures that help to relieve the physical and mental toll that they experience.

Pay is a very important issue. However, having spoken to nurses from the RCN outside the Parliament building before the recess, I know that their working conditions and their terms and conditions are really important issues, too. I will continue to work with RCN members on that.

This winter, we must reduce waiting times as far as possible without putting more undue pressure on a tired workforce, and we must ensure that all avenues for access to care are well advertised and communicated.

David Torrance (Scottish National Party, Kirkcaldy)

First, I pay tribute to our outstanding health and social care workers across Scotland. The past few years have put an immense strain on our healthcare system and its workers. Despite those stresses, and in the face of unprecedented and unimaginable challenges, those who work in the sector have continued to provide exceptional service.

As we look ahead, no one in the chamber is under any illusions about the challenges and the difficulties that this winter will bring. We all know that extremely tough times lie ahead. This winter, it will take the combined efforts of national and local government, working alongside all our healthcare partners, to tackle the challenges that lie ahead.

Make no mistake, however: while Labour members stand here and criticise, healthcare staff and services are under strain not just in Scotland, despite what they would like us to believe. In every part of the United Kingdom, the NHS faces significant pressures. To my mind, the similarities end there. Why? What separates us from other parts of the UK?

We have a Scottish Government that cares, that has a strong and steady leadership and that has plans. We have a health secretary who recognises the challenges that lie ahead and is totally committed to improving performance and delivering positive change. Contrast that with our English counterparts, and I know who I would trust to safeguard the health and wellbeing of my family, friends and loved ones.

Labour has highlighted its concerns about our A and E departments. What we will not hear from it is the knowledge that our accident and emergency departments are performing better than those in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

In Scotland, the staffing levels of the NHS have grown for 10 consecutive years. Although the staffing and funding are already at historically high levels, the Scottish Government will continue to look to maximise and enhance wherever possible as we approach the winter period.

Alex Rowley (Labour, Mid Scotland and Fife)

Will the member give way?

David Torrance (Scottish National Party, Kirkcaldy)

No, thank you. Do you know why I will not take an intervention? When you went into coalition with the Tories in the [

Inaudible

.]—

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Speak through the chair, Mr Torrance.

David Torrance (Scottish National Party, Kirkcaldy)

It is recognised by the Government that the current level of performance is not acceptable. No one here will deny that. That is why, earlier this month, the health secretary outlined in his winter resilience overview several actions for the coming winter months, backed by more than £600 million of funding. By April this year, more than 1,000 additional healthcare support staff and almost 200 registered nurses had been recruited to help to address our services’ challenges.

In the past year, staffing levels have increased by more than 2,800 permanent full-time-equivalent roles. The Scottish Government is investing in further recruitment and taking action through the £50 million urgent and unscheduled care collaborative.

I have listened with interest and some disbelief as my Labour colleagues have spoken of thousands of beds being blocked due to delayed discharge. I get the sense that, in their desire to criticise and condemn the Scottish Government, they lack some self-awareness. There can be no doubt that Brexit and the introduction of new United Kingdom immigration procedures have had a profoundly damaging effect on social care. However, the Labour Party continues to eagerly embrace the Tories’ extreme Brexit and all of its overwhelmingly negative impacts.

EU workers have made a hugely positive contribution in the care sector for many years, and they represent a vital component of our country’s social care workforce. However, Brexit and the Tory party’s yearning to take back control of the UK have created a shortfall in care services, which, in turn, has had severe knock-on effects on emergency and urgent care. The whole system becomes blocked when there are not enough care workers to provide support services for people who are leaving hospital. That leads to gridlock and backlogs through the entire system. If people cannot leave hospital due to a lack of social care, patients are stuck in A and E while they wait for hospital beds. People who have needed an ambulance have been left waiting because the ambulances have been waiting for transfers of patients.

Only this week, we all heard Keir Starmer’s determined and short-sighted answer when he was asked about rejoining the EU: “It’s a straight no”. That shows that Labour and the Tories are increasingly two sides of the same coin. Both are completely unwilling to stand up and do what is best for the people of Scotland.

Just imagine what our NHS could do with the £770 million a year that is spent on mitigating Tory policies.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

You need to conclude, Mr Torrance.

David Torrance (Scottish National Party, Kirkcaldy)

In conclusion, our NHS has suffered the biggest shock of its 74-year existence, and it will not recover overnight, as the Government has acknowledged.

Edward Mountain (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

I pay tribute to all our front-line staff in the NHS. Whether the treatment is routine or emergency, they never falter.

Last year, my personal contact with the NHS allowed me to see how hard its staff work. However, it is clear to me that our front-line staff do not have the resources that they need. That means that there are too many patients who struggle to be seen, to get diagnosed and, worse still, to get prompt treatment.

Overworked GPs often cannot see patients in person. Carrying out a diagnosis on a computer is a risky business. GPs need to see patients and, although Near Me and other online portals might work, being told that you have cancer on a telephone in your parliamentary office sucks, as does waiting 10 days for a full-hour appointment.

As the NHS comes under increased pressure and faces crisis management, there is a real danger that human care will be the first thing that is sacrificed. It is the personal approach—the bedside manner—which patients need and staff want to deliver, that suffers.

Not providing the resources to allow staff to deliver that care is in itself a dereliction of duty—your duty, cabinet secretary.

We all recognise the pressures of Covid, but the health service was under extreme pressure before Covid. Every winter, we face the inevitable and predictable rise in the number of patients. Every year, the Government guddles around trying to find solutions, and every year it says that it is listening and learning. The trouble is that, although it might have been listening, it certainly has not heard and it certainly has never learned.

Cabinet secretary, you will say that your winter plan will result in the recruitment of 1,000 extra staff and will provide £120 million extra to provide help at home. Where exactly are you going to get the staff from and—

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Speak through the chair, please, Mr Mountain.

Edward Mountain (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

Sorry.

Where exactly will the cabinet secretary get those staff from, and how will the additional funds provide the care at home that is so desperately needed?

Another perennial problem that the Government has failed to address is that of delayed discharges. The Government promised to eradicate delayed discharges in 2015, but successive health secretaries, including the current one, have failed miserably to address them. The numbers remain at almost a record high. In NHS Highland, there has been a 32 per cent increase in delayed discharges in this year alone.

One word covers that: failure—this Government’s failure. Every treated patient in hospital who is waiting for a social care package is preventing another patient on the waiting list from getting treatment. Longer waits and delayed treatment result, without doubt, in outcomes that are less than optimal. The Government’s failure on delayed discharges is now very much the cabinet secretary’s failure.

Across Scotland, waiting times in A and E are going up, cancer waiting times are going up and nurse vacancies are going up. They are all going in the wrong direction—up. The real question is: when will the health secretary stop dragging our NHS down, which seems to be the only thing that he is capable of doing?

Emma Harper (Scottish National Party, South Scotland)

Here we are again, with another politically opportunistic motion from the Labour Party that is politicising our health service in Scotland. Contrary to the motion, the health secretary and the team are focused on ensuring that Scotland’s NHS is as well equipped as possible to tackle the huge challenges that we face.

I know that there are challenges in taking care of people, the processes and pathways, the prevention of acute admissions and the work in primary care. The work that my former colleagues undertake every day is complex, and the systems are challenging. For 30 years before becoming a member of Parliament, I was in the NHS in Scotland and England and a nurse in the USA, so I think that I know a wee bit about what is going on in our national health service. Sometimes, when I read such motions, I wonder if the Opposition ken diddly qua qua about what is actually going on.

I know that, over the past two years, the NHS has suffered the biggest shock in its 74 years of existence. I thank all the people who work in the NHS for their work, care, compassion and commitment, and for what they do every day. The Scottish Government’s recovery plan, which is backed by more than £1 billion of investment, sets out plans for health and care over the next five years, so it is not just for this winter. The plan will support in-patient, day case and out-patient activity, as well as implementation of sustainable improvements and new models of care through investing in a network of national treatment centres. That will increase capacity for additional specialties, including diagnostics, general surgery, orthopaedics and ophthalmology.

The plan also supports the mental health and wellbeing of the health and care workforce, which we have heard so much about in the past couple of years. We should get right behind looking at ways to support people using digital opportunities such as NHS Near Me.

It is crucial that we help to equip the NHS for the winter pressures, but we need to think beyond the winter as well.

On specific A and E challenges, I hear what is being said. In common with other health services across the UK and globally, Scottish A and E departments are working under significant pressure, and the pandemic continues to affect services. Mind that word “Covid”? We need to remember the impact that the Covid pandemic has had, and is still having, on our national health service.

The Scottish Government is taking action to improve A and E waiting times, and the £50 million urgent and unscheduled care collaborative will help to implement a range of measures to drive down those waiting times. The work includes offering alternatives to hospital, such as the hospital at home service; directing people to urgent care settings; and scheduling urgent appointments to avoid long waits in A and E departments. I know about the long waits in A and E. I hear about them directly from former colleagues and from folk working 12-hour shifts. It is hugely challenging.

In August, Scotland’s core A and E departments performed 8.1 percentage points better than England’s and 10.3 percentage points better than Wales’s. During that period, A and E waiting times in Labour-controlled Wales were worse than they were in Scotland, so I wonder whether Jackie Baillie or any other Labour member, when closing the debate, can clarify whether they are also calling on the Welsh Labour health secretary to resign. Labour’s performance in Wales does not inspire confidence that Labour would do any better here in Scotland.

I am conscious of the time, but I note what Gillian Martin said about potential solutions, and I welcome the steps that the Scottish Government is taking to support our NHS. I want the health secretary to listen to clinicians directly so that he can hear their ideas and suggestions for improving systems. We need to get right behind our NHS workforce and support staff in any way that we can in the future.

Craig Hoy (Conservative, South Scotland)

Scotland’s NHS faces its worst winter on record, and it faces that because of the SNP Government. It faces that because of the wrong choices that have been made by the health secretary—choices that have led to the worst cancer waiting times ever, the worst ambulance waiting times ever, a demoralised and unappreciated workforce, and nurses threatening to strike for the first time in history. The Government has chosen the path of poor terms and low pay. Critically ill patients in the most severe category are being forced to wait hours for an ambulance.

Gillian Martin (Scottish National Party, Aberdeenshire East)

Will the member take an intervention?

Craig Hoy (Conservative, South Scotland)

No, I will not.

Tens of thousands of people waited more than four hours to be seen at A and E units last month, and hundreds of cancer patients have waited more than two months to begin urgent treatment. According to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, delays in Scotland’s A and E departments last month meant that 40 people died who need not have died. Cumulatively, our NHS is not just facing a crisis this winter; it faces a catastrophe.

Week after week, the SNP and the Greens continue to waste millions of pounds of public money.

Gillian Martin (Scottish National Party, Aberdeenshire East)

Will the member take an intervention on that point?

Craig Hoy (Conservative, South Scotland)

No.

Millions of pounds have been put at risk on the wrong choice for social care, millions of pounds are being wasted on a campaign for Scottish independence, millions have been wasted on fake foreign embassies and overseas junkets, and millions have been wasted by the SNP on botched ferries that were wrongly contracted against the advice of civil servants.

This situation did not come about by chance; it came about by choice—the SNP’s choice. It has made the wrong choices locally and the wrong choices nationally.

Kevin Stewart (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

Will Mr Hoy add to his list by looking at some of the things that have happened recently south of the border because of the incompetence of the Tory party? For example, £65 billion has had to be spent propping up pension funds because of Trussonomics.

Craig Hoy (Conservative, South Scotland)

Why not focus on the £41 billion that the Government has here in Scotland to make our public services better? Perhaps—

Kevin Stewart (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

What about the £65 billion?

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Mr Stewart! You have had an intervention. Be quiet!

Craig Hoy (Conservative, South Scotland)

The minister is not in an Aberdeen nightclub now, so he should behave.

The wrong choices are being made time and again—wrong choices such as the closure of beds in the minor injuries clinic at Edington cottage hospital in North Berwick. The SNP makes the wrong choices for residents time and again.

The calamity of all calamities is coming in the form of the national care service. The SNP is choosing a national care service over local care, all because it chooses centralisation at every turn. Do not take my word for it. Let us look at what COSLA and Unison say:

“For the sake of those individuals and families who need our support waiting four or five years for the establishment of the NCS is not an option. We cannot and should not break up the Local Government workforce, particularly at this critical time in our recovery from the pandemic.”

Independent researchers from the Scottish Parliament estimate that the SNP’s proposals to create a national care service will cost up to £1.3 billion over the next five years. Even the nodding dogs on the SNP’s back benches conceded that point yesterday in the Finance and Public Administration Committee—

Members

Oh!

Craig Hoy (Conservative, South Scotland)

The minister knows only too well that he is on the wrong path. Scotland needs a well-funded, high-quality health service—[

Interruption

.]

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Sit down, Mr Hoy.

Gillian Martin (Scottish National Party, Aberdeenshire East)

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. Is it not incumbent on MSPs to treat other MSPs with respect?

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I am not sure that that is a point of order, Ms Martin, but it is absolutely the case that members should treat one another with respect. That goes for everyone.

Continue and conclude, Mr Hoy.

Craig Hoy (Conservative, South Scotland)

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

Scotland needs a well-funded, high-quality health service in which care is delivered closer to patients, staff feel rewarded and valued, and patients are treated quickly and safely. In short, we need an NHS in which big choices are driven by patient care and not by the independence obsession of this incompetent SNP Government and its incompetent health secretary.

Humza Yousaf (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Pollok)

I will not respond to the personal attacks, because it is a shame that a debate of such importance and seriousness has seen such pathetic and grubby personal attacks—not just on me, but on members across the chamber. It is a shame, because it does no service whatsoever to our hard-working NHS staff, who are working under incredible pressure.

I will tackle some of the issues that have been raised, which are important to all across the chamber. On cancer, statistics continue to show that, notwithstanding the huge impacts of the pandemic, we continue to meet the 31-day target. We are not meeting the 62-day target, which remains challenging. That is why our focus has been on the detecting cancer early programme, and it is why we have invested—as I announced—£10 million to improve cancer waiting times, on top of the £114.5 million in the national cancer plan. It is also why I announced three rapid cancer diagnostic services and why two more have just been approved. We will continue to focus relentlessly on ensuring that cancer is detected early, because we know that, if it is, that will lead to better outcomes and survivability for people.

On winter funding, I was astonished by what Jackie Baillie had to say. She complained that there was no new money and that I had announced all the money last year. However, it was Jackie Baillie who demanded, last year, that the money be recurring. Winter pressure money for this winter was recurring, and now she complains about that same money being recurring. She cannot have it both ways.

Jackie Baillie (Labour, Dumbarton)

Everybody—including the cabinet secretary himself—has said that this will be the worst winter ever. Surely, this is the point at which to put in additional resource to cope with that, so that patients do not suffer.

Humza Yousaf (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Pollok)

That is why we are spending a record £18 billion on the health service in this financial year. I say to Jackie Baillie that you do not just wake up one day and say, “Oh, it’s going to be a bad winter.” You plan for it the year before, which is why we ensured that we had recurring money.

A thousand additional staff will be recruited over the course of this winter. Edward Mountain is on his phone, but he might want to listen, because he asked where those staff will come from. Of those 1,000 staff, 750 will be recruited from overseas—because boards tell us that they have the capacity to bring people from overseas—and 250 will be recruited domestically.

I will touch on Alex Rowley’s contribution, which I thought was fair and showed a willingness from some members of the Labour Party to come forward with ideas and solutions for the social care sector and the national care service. I say to Alex Rowley that there is no silver bullet. I promise him that, if there were, we would have deployed it by now.

Our relentless focus is on workforce, because that is the challenge, and I cannot disassociate that workforce challenge from the folly of Brexit. Kevin Stewart reminded me of the fact that one care home provider told him that 40 per cent of his staff had had to leave—he lost them—largely due to Brexit.

Our focus will be on the social care sector, and pay will be a part of that.

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

Humza Yousaf (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Pollok)

I cannot give way—I have to finish in less than a minute.

We have a relentless focus on pay, terms and conditions, whether in the NHS or in social care.

I will conclude my remarks shortly, Presiding Officer, but I cannot let the Conservatives get away with talking about social care and our public finances. How dare they come to the chamber and utter one syllable about the challenges that our public finances face? Through their incompetence, their economic mismanagement and their economic vandalism, my health budget is worth £650 million less than it was when it was set in December last year, So, why do they not grow a backbone and, instead of waiting for the next number 10 incumbent to tickle their tummy, try standing up for Scotland and for our public services?

I end by thanking our NHS staff for the incredible work that they do.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I call Paul O’Kane to wind up the debate.

Paul O'Kane (Labour, West Scotland)

Our NHS is facing a humanitarian crisis this winter, and—let us be frank—the responsibility lies at the door of this Government and this cabinet secretary.

Today, we have again heard about the scale of the crisis in our NHS. We have heard from Jackie Baillie about the personal cost behind each and every one of the numbers, each of which represents a person with a family and their own story who is cared for by our amazing NHS staff, who are at breaking point.

The debate has been characterised by the cabinet secretary’s thin skin. He complained about being personally attacked, but the reality is that all that Jackie Baillie and Labour members did was point out his failures in comparison with his predecessors in the job of health secretary, including Jeane Freeman, who led the country through the beginning of the pandemic. Alex Cole-Hamilton took a similar approach when he pointed out what Paul Gray has said about the head of steam that has built up, the perfect storm that has been created and the fact that it is not all about Covid.

Kevin Stewart (Scottish National Party, Aberdeen Central)

Will the member give way?

Paul O'Kane (Labour, West Scotland)

I would like to make some progress.

SNP back benchers accused us of making political attacks, but what we have heard from them is desperate stuff. They accuse us of making political attacks, but all that we have had from them is howls of “red Tory” as Carol Mochan made her speech, nonsense comparisons with Wales and England, and attacks on Keir Starmer, so scared are they of a UK Labour Government. We will not take lectures from a party that has spent this debate indulging in whataboutery and refusing to acknowledge its responsibility for every single person who has to lie on a trolley in A and E this winter.

The cabinet secretary said that he prepares for winter in advance, so can he tell us why Dr John Thomson, the vice-chair of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, has stated that the measures that are outlined in the cabinet secretary’s winter resilience plan will

“not be in place in time to prevent further harm to patients and staff this winter”?

Yes, the experts are clear.

Gillian Martin called for solutions that are backed by the experts. That is absolutely right. I went outside and met members of the RCN when they protested in front of the Parliament. They told me that they need more training places to be filled and a fair pay settlement across all bands. They also told me that they need proper breaks and proper rest when they are on shift, because they are not getting those at the moment and the workforce is on its knees.

Perhaps we should subscribe to Emma Harper’s attitude and not listen to the hard-working staff and their trade unions. I am quite sure that they will make diddly quack of whatever her contribution was supposed to be about.

Let us be honest. The issue across our NHS is being exacerbated by the Scottish Government’s refusal to engage on pay, whether of nurses or of social care workers, and its refusal to back Scottish Labour’s pledge to pay social care workers £15 an hour—a wage that they could live on, not just survive on.

The Scottish Government has also failed on social care more widely. It has failed to implement key recommendations of the Feeley report, and there are serious concerns about its approach to the national care service, which have been outlined by trade unions, the third sector and professional bodies. As Alex Rowley and others said, it is clear that the Scottish Government is not listening to what is being said about the serious challenges in social care. All of that begs the question, if the Government is not going to listen to the advice of independent experts in the field, who is it going to listen to?

It is fair to say that Humza Yousaf is a record breaker. Week after week, we learn about record-breaking accident and emergency waiting times. Every time that Scottish Labour is forced to bring debates such as today’s to the chamber, we find that another record has been broken by the cabinet secretary. It is quite clear that, in place of meaningful action to address the crises in A and E, in social care and across our NHS, all that the cabinet secretary has to offer is hollow words. It is increasingly obvious that Humza Yousaf is the man with no plan.

I am sure that most of the members in the chamber could have pre-empted the cabinet secretary’s response before he got to his feet. If you do not like one of his excuses, he has others. First, it was Covid. Then it was Brexit, the cost of living, winter weather and staffing. It is the same old script, which does a disservice to healthcare staff, patients and the families of patients, who have real concerns about the current crisis in our NHS.

It is not good enough. We need a health secretary who can offer leadership, not one who hides behind tired old scripted excuses. The First Minister is fond of saying that the buck stops with the Government, although she rarely does anything other than look at the buck and watch it float by. So, in the cabinet secretary’s own words to hard-working nurses, let us not patronise one another. The buck stops with him, and, if he is not willing to get on and fix the situation in the NHS, he should resign.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

That concludes the debate on supporting the NHS in winter. It is now time to move on to the next item of business. There will be a brief pause while the front-bench teams change.

Cost of Living

Annabelle Ewing (Scottish National Party, Cowdenbeath)

The next item of business is a debate on motion S6M-06438, in the name of Daniel Johnson, on the cost of living. I invite members who wish to speak in the debate to please press their request-to-speak buttons.

Mark Griffin (Labour, Central Scotland)

Before recess, we voted to introduce a rent freeze, after the Government accepted Labour’s arguments that rents must be frozen and tenants protected from eviction—using the powers that this Parliament has—to help people with the cost of living crisis.

The crisis is a national emergency on the scale of the Covid pandemic, and Scottish Labour has been leading the way throughout it. We called for a windfall tax, a freeze on energy bills, a freeze on rents and protection from eviction for tenants, which were all dismissed and then adopted by the United Kingdom and Scottish Governments.

Clare Adamson (Scottish National Party, Motherwell and Wishaw)

Can the member explain to me where in the Scotland Act 1998 action on windfall taxes and energy companies is in the gift of the Scottish Government?

Mark Griffin (Labour, Central Scotland)

I did not say that that was in the gift of the Scottish Government. I set out a series of policies that were dismissed and then adopted by the UK and Scottish Governments. However, I should point out that they were also dismissed by, and then supported by, Scottish National Party MPs at Westminster. Perhaps that escaped the member.

For months now, people who were managing have found themselves pushed to the brink with repeated financial shocks. Food costs, heating bills, fuel costs, spiralling rents and now mortgages keep on going in one direction, and that is up.

Our plan detailed interventions that would make a real difference to families in Scotland, so we are returning to the chamber to call on the Scottish Government to take further action.

I want to be

clear that the unprecedented chaos that has been unleashed on the UK by the Tories at a time when we need stability the most means that this winter will be longer and harder than any of us expected when we put forward our cost of living plan in August. The Conservatives’ disastrous mini-budget crashed the pound and accelerated the rise in costs that families are having to bear.

The Food & Drink Federation put food ingredient inflation at 30 per cent, and because imports are traded in dollars, non-European Union imports have become more expensive.

Even now, the reality of the situation, including vital information about the rate at which pensioners and people on benefits will have their payments uprated, will not be known until 17 November.

The Deputy First Minister—who is not here—recently tweeted that he would not have to recalculate his budget review, because he never expected the mini-budget Barnett consequentials to ever materialise. If it is the case that no recalculation is required, the Government could bring forward its own statement.

Our motion returns to the cost of living plan to help those in need. It calls for the cancelling of school meals debt, increased funding for money advice services and a top-up to the welfare fund—all of which, for the interest of those who have a concern about what this Parliament and Government can do, is within this Parliament’s gift. Those measures are firmly within the gift of this Government and could have a real and substantial impact on people’s lives.

Christine Grahame (Scottish National Party, Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale)

Those are all worthy measures, but can Mark Griffin give us a costing for them and tell us where the funding will come from?

Mark Griffin (Labour, Central Scotland)

We have come to the chamber again and again to give policy suggestions around income that the Government could bring in to fund those measures. Only in June, Labour and SNP members voted in favour of clawing back the £400 energy supplement for second homes, in particular in order to target that money at cost of living measures. The Government agreed to do that and all its back benchers supported it. However, we have seen nothing—there has been no action on that £400 supplement, which is going to second home owners but which could be going into the pockets of those who need it most. There has been no action at all. We have come again and again with suggestions.

Tom Arthur (Scottish National Party, Renfrewshire South)

I am sure that Mr Griffin will want to correct the record. After he wrote to me, I confirmed to him that we had written to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and engaged. As he will appreciate, although the aspiration is venerable and worthy of respect, the capacity to implement it is a lot more complicated than his rhetoric would suggest.

Mark Griffin (Labour, Central Scotland)

When I speak to council leaders, all they say to me is, “We have heard about this and we have heard nothing more from Government about how we implement it.” They are desperate to get on with the job and to take in that extra money, which could be going into the pockets of those who need it most. They are simply waiting for the Government to tell them how to do that.

We have set out areas where we think that the Scottish Government should step up—on cancelling school meals debt, on topping up the welfare fund and on support for advice services. We have come to the Parliament regularly to speak about how those steps could be funded through better income generation and by cutting out the waste that this Government seems to grow more of than it does support for those who need it most.

People are absolutely sick of the chaos that they see going on in the UK Government. They are sick of seeing it push their bills only one way, which is up and up and up. They want to see more action, and there is action that can be taken that is within the gift of this Government. People want that reassurance, and they want it now.

I move,

That the Parliament notes that inflation again reached 10.1% in September 2022, driven by rising food prices and energy bills; condemns the mini-budget set out by the UK Government, and recognises that the cost of living pressures that households are facing will be exacerbated by the economic damage it caused; believes that the priority for every government must be preventing further instability and addressing the cost of living; considers that there is more action that could be taken by the Scottish Government, including the cancellation of school meals debt, increased funding for money advice services and a top up to the welfare fund; remains deeply concerned about households in Scotland that are struggling to make ends meet over the winter, and calls, therefore, in the interests of transparency, for the Deputy First Minister to set out the outcome of the Emergency Budget Review to Parliament as a matter of urgency.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

I call the minister to speak to and move amendment S6M-06438.2. You have up to five minutes, minister.

Tom Arthur (Scottish National Party, Renfrewshire South)

I thank Mr Johnson and, indeed, Mr Griffin for bringing the motion to Parliament. It is a very timely motion about exactly the issue that our constituents would expect us to be debating—the cost of living crisis that is exacerbated by the continuing fallout from Brexit and by the recent chaos that the UK Government has unleashed on our economy, people, communities and businesses, which means that they are facing soaring inflation, rising costs and spiralling energy bills. The severe economic shock that everyone is facing is leading to cases of hardship and poverty.

The Scottish budget is not immune to the rising costs and budget pressures. As the Deputy First Minister has set out, our budget is now worth around £1.7 billion less than when it was set in December because of increasing inflation. We know that the Welsh Government is in the same position. We recently saw the Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford point that out to the Tory Prime Minister, when he indicated that the Welsh Government’s budget is—as I understand it—now worth up to £4 billion less in real terms than it was when the three-year funding settlement was set last year.

The reality is that the decisions facing us are stark. Every additional pound that we spend in one area means a pound less has to be spent in another area. We have already taken action with the £500 million of savings that we announced last month, and which we have been clear were just the beginning of the hard choices that will be required to ensure that we can balance our budget while also supporting those in greatest need and providing fair and affordable public sector pay awards.

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

Although I understand the difficulties in providing budget updates given the chaos from the Tory Government in the UK, there are non-fiscal measures that do not require spending that could be brought forward now, such as a review of regulation. Will the minister provide an update on where that review is?

Tom Arthur (Scottish National Party, Renfrewshire South)

Certainly. The member will be aware that that commitment was given when the Deputy First Minister set out the initial savings on 6 or 7 September.

It is still our intention to bring forward an emergency budget review. The member will appreciate that we anticipated a fiscal statement on Monday from the UK Government, but that has now been pushed back to 17 November. As a consequence of that, we face even more uncertainty.

We will do all that we can, and we will set out what we will do in relation to considering regulation, but the reality is that on the fiscal matters that pertain to the autumn budget revision, we are in a more uncertain situation because of the decision taken by the UK Government to delay its fiscal statement.

Bob Doris (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn)

Does the minister have any indication whatsoever of how many millions of pounds will be ripped from the Scottish Parliament’s budget following the UK Government’s new budget statement on 17 November?

Tom Arthur (Scottish National Party, Renfrewshire South)

The reality is that we do not know. I already highlighted the amount that we have lost through inflation, and, as members will appreciate, we do not know what our finalised budget picture will be until the end of the year because of supplementary estimates, and there is always the risk of negative consequentials. That makes in-year budget management extremely challenging.

The UK Government’s statement must not inflict further austerity on Scotland as a result of the mess that it has caused. The triple lock for pensions must not be removed again. We cannot have benefits not increase in line with inflation, and we cannot have people not being helped with their energy bills as they continue to soar.

As the First Minister made clear to the Prime Minister last night, the UK Government holds levers over energy, the majority of tax, the bulk of benefits and the business support and regulation that could help address the crisis. It also has borrowing powers and the ability to deploy financial instruments that can transform household and business budgets.

For example, a strengthened windfall tax should be an important source of funding for that support, rather than borrowing and spending cuts. That would help meet the costs of providing additional help for households and business, rather than increased borrowing and cuts to public spending, which would exacerbate the existing situation. We estimate that around £9.3 billion could be raised by broadening the energy profits levy and removing the investment allowance.

There must also be an inflationary uplift to the 2022-23 budget to enable the Scottish Government to take further steps to support people with the cost of living, provide fair public sector pay uplifts and support public services, given the fiscal constraints on devolution. That will allow us to continue to take action to support people at this very challenging time and is how we can build on the almost £3 billion of support that the Scottish Government has already provided this year, including £1 billion of support that is available only to households in Scotland.

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

Will the minister take an intervention?

The Deputy Presiding Officer

The minister is about to conclude.

Tom Arthur (Scottish National Party, Renfrewshire South)

This is an extremely challenging period. I look forward to members’ contributions. I hope that they are informed, pragmatic and considered contributions that take cognisance of the limited powers of the Scottish Parliament and the extremely challenging fiscal and economic situation that we face.

I move amendment S6M-06438.2, to leave out from “; believes that” to end and insert:

“alongside the disastrous economic impact of leaving the European Union, which is being felt by Scotland’s economy, businesses and households; recognises that, as a result of increasing inflation, the Scottish budget is worth £1.7 billion less than when it was set in December 2021; welcomes the financial support that the Scottish Government has provided from within its fixed and limited budget to help people facing the impact of the cost of living crisis, including direct cash support, with almost £3 billion allocated to support households, £1 billion of which is support only available in Scotland; recognises that this includes the unique £20 per week per child Scottish Child Payment, which will increase to £25 on 14 November 2022, when it is also extended to under 16s, and £44 million for the Carer’s Allowance Supplement; acknowledges further support with the planned doubling of the December Bridging Payment to £260, supporting up to 145,000 school-aged children; notes the additional costs that the Scottish Government has funded in relation to public sector pay; expresses concern at the prospect of a fresh round of UK Government austerity; believes that the priority for every government must be preventing further instability and addressing the cost of living; calls on the UK Government to use its fiscal statement on 31 October to rule out a return to austerity, further help people with soaring energy bills, reinstate the pension triple lock, confirm an inflationary rise in social security benefits in 2022-23 and provide the Scottish Government with an inflationary uplift to the 2022-23 budget to enable the Scottish Government to take further steps to support people with the cost of living; believes that a strengthened windfall tax should be an important source of funding for this support, rather than borrowing and public spending cuts, and understands that the Scottish Government will finalise and publish the outcome of the Emergency Budget Review once consideration has been given to the implications of the UK Government’s fiscal statement and updated Office of Budget Responsibility’s forecasts.”

Jamie Halcro Johnston (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

After a period of historically low inflation, and low interest rates, we find ourselves in the middle of an economic crisis in which rising costs of living have hit this country, as well as many others, across a range of goods and services.

That presents a real challenge to Governments at all levels. As members of the Scottish Parliament, we see the consequences first hand across our constituencies and regions. We will all know, from the correspondence we receive and the people we meet, that families and businesses face tough conditions and are feeling the impact of circumstances that are beyond their control.

In his September letter, the governor of the Bank of England set out the factors at play behind the rise in inflation—in particular, the role of Vladimir Putin’s appalling act of aggression against Ukraine and its disastrous consequences, which comes at a key moment in our recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Those are not normal economic forces—

in many ways, they are unprecedented—but there is, at least, some cause for optimism. Global wholesale gas prices have fallen and Europe has moved towards greater energy security and resilience.

Daniel Johnson (Labour, Edinburgh Southern)

In the member’s long list of factors, he failed to mention the decisions that were made in the mini-budget in September that sent gilts up in the highest one-day increase since black Wednesday. Does the member acknowledge, as the Prime Minister has, that errors were made?

Jamie Halcro Johnston (Conservative, Highlands and Islands)

As the Prime Minister did, I do.

If prices can be stabilised, the positive impact on the worst medium-term projections for energy costs will be considerable. However, the hard reality is that the underlying problems will not go away in the immediate term, and they will underlie our economic decision making well into next year. At this stage, it is a vital role of Government to use its best efforts to reduce the impact and support people through the winter.

The UK Government acted quickly and decisively to bring about £37 billion of intervention to help people with energy bills. Many parts of that package have been targeted specifically to help those who are most vulnerable, including low-income families and pensioner households that are often on fixed incomes. That is the right approach, and it will be of immense help to people the length and breadth of the UK.

We should not forget that that support comes on the back of the extraordinary assistance that was provided through furlough and other schemes during the worst part of the Covid pandemic. We were able to draw on the resources of Government to keep people in jobs and avoid the mass-scale unemployment and business closures that could very easily have resulted. The UK Government has gone further and faster than many would have expected. Although the costs borne by the Treasury have been eye watering, we can only imagine the costs of not acting.

Absent from Labour’s motion is consideration of the impact on businesses, including the additional costs that they face, the disruption to supply chains and the wider questions over their future. I was open in my calls for action to help businesses tackle the hike in energy bills that threatened the survival of so many, so I was delighted when that support was given by the UK Government. That has, undoubtedly, saved jobs and livelihoods in my region and beyond.

We agree with Labour that both Governments should be responsive and working with the common purpose of helping and supporting our constituents through this period. More will undoubtedly need to be done, which is why it is particularly galling to see the Scottish Government use its time and resources to call for more division, pretend that a Scotland without a proper central bank or control over its own currency is a good—or even viable—idea and try to wrench us away from billions of pounds of fiscal sharing within the United Kingdom. The idea that this is the time for its constitutional obsession to be pursued is ridiculous. That it would plan to take it forward under the calamitous and discredited economic prospectus that the First Minister outlined only weeks ago—proposals that were described as “utter pish” by one leading nationalist and so bad they would make another vote “no” in a referendum—is an insult to Scottish voters.

We cannot underestimate the seriousness of the cost of living crisis. It is hitting hard those who are already some of the most disadvantaged in our country. Scotland’s Governments must step up, work together and ensure that their actions are well targeted and that families and businesses are protected.

I move amendment S6M-06438.1, to leave out from “condemns” to end and insert:

“recognises that an increasing rate of inflation is a challenge faced by many countries around the world; welcomes the cost of living support provided by the UK Government to both businesses and households, including freezing the unit price of energy and giving payments to the most vulnerable in society worth up to £1,650, and calls on the Scottish Government to end its campaign to hold another independence referendum during this cost of living crisis and for both the UK and Scottish governments to work together to tackle the current crisis.”

Willie Rennie (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

Last week, I visited the food bank in Anstruther.

Those who are familiar with Anstruther and the east neuk of Fife may be surprised that there is a food bank in that area, but it is now an essential part of the fabric of that community.

I was informed by food bank organiser, Richard Wemyss, about the real impact of inflation. He told me that the cost of a basket of 16 goods had increased from £7 in the pre-Covid period to £14.10 now. The items in that basket are not luxury items but basic, essential goods or savers options from Lidl. That is the reality for people on the front line who face the cost of living crisis. Nationally, soaring prices for food and drink were the biggest driver of the latest inflation rise of 10.1 per cent. There has been an annual rise of almost 15 per cent in the price of bread, cereals, meat, milk, cheese and eggs. That is the fastest annual jump since April 1980—

it is quite staggering.

It is not right to say that the cost of living crisis is solely the responsibility of the Conservative Government. We all know that Putin and the knock-on effects of the pandemic are significant reasons for the increases, and we also know that United States interest rates are a factor, but

it is also wrong to say that the Conservative Government has not made the crisis a whole lot deeper. It chose to make

Liz Truss Prime Minister and ignored the warnings from Rishi Sunak about her economic plans and the impact on mortgage costs. The damage that her mini-budget caused cannot simply be reversed.

Those mortgage agreements will not be renegotiated, the increased cost of Government borrowing will not be recouped, and the steps taken to recover the economic reputation of the Government are set to be incredibly harsh.

The failure to act timeously with an energy package earlier on this year when it was announced that the energy prices were to be increased caused immense anxiety for those who were already struggling to pay their energy bills. Refusing to introduce a comprehensive energy package of measures to cover off-grid fuel users in rural areas leaves them in dire straits; £100 for off-grid oil users is simply an insult. By refusing to guarantee that benefits will rise with inflation, this Government is contemplating inflicting an even harsher, darker, colder winter on some of the most vulnerable people in this country.

Bob Doris (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn)

Should the UK Government also be guaranteeing that, in its 17 November budget, it does not rip money away from this place’s budget so that we can do all that we can to support those who are most vulnerable in households right across Scotland during the cost of living crisis?

Willie Rennie (Liberal Democrat, North East Fife)

I do not think that I would disagree with that, but it is not all about this place. There is so much that needs to be done across the United Kingdom. The safety and security that the United Kingdom provides is essential and that is why the lack of guarantees when the pension triple-lock is coming under threat is incredible.

I want to see action on benefits, on pensions, and on supporting rural energy users. I also want to see action to make sure that we drive down inflation, the cost of borrowing and the cost of mortgages.

There is one specific thing, in addition, that I want to see. It is in relation to the carers allowance. An increase of 3.1 per cent is simply not enough. That increase means only 30p extra a day. With a rise in inflation of 10 per cent, that means that the carers allowance is now 6.4 per cent lower in real terms compared with last year.

We need to take action across the UK to help people who are vulnerable at this incredibly difficult time. We will support Labour’s motion and the measures that are proposed within it.

The Deputy Presiding Officer

Before calling the first speaker in the open debate, I make a plea to all members to ensure that they have pressed their request-to-speak buttons if they are seeking to speak in the debate.

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Lothian)

The cost of living crisis is having a massive impact on people’s lives. Mortgages are rocketing and inflation is massively increasing people’s food costs and it is those on the lowest incomes who are hit the hardest.

In Edinburgh, around six in 10 people say they fear that they will not be able to pay their energy bills; four out of 10 are worried that they will not be able to afford their rent or mortgage; up to a quarter fear that they could be made homeless; and up to 30 per cent say that they might have to resort to food banks.

A couple of days ago, Homeless Project Scotland shared a picture that really brought home the shocking reality that many of our constituents will be facing this winter. It is a picture of people standing in the cold waiting to receive a hot soup, sandwiches, and a coffee. Homeless Project Scotland said:

“We need a building to bring people indoors this winter. Glasgow City Council, Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government: you have the power to help.”

However, the problem is that our Governments are failing people. In Scotland, we have a Government that avoids responsibility and action, driven by its independence obsession—as we have heard today—and in the UK, our third Tory Prime Minister this year is leading the party that caused the chaos that is now hitting people and damaging our economy.

SNP and Green MSPs will say that their hands are tied because Scotland is not independent. However, as we debate the need for action, I am disappointed and angry about the lack of forward thinking and the lack of priority given to insulating our homes and building community heat and power networks. That would have given our communities more investment and more protection from the cost of living crisis that we are now in—15 years in power and none of the political leadership to deliver the warm, energy-efficient, low-carbon homes that we desperately need across Scotland.

Ross Greer (Green, West Scotland)

Will the member give way?

Sarah Boyack (Labour, Lothian)

No, I am very short of time.

We need action now. Labour-led City of Edinburgh Council is proposing to use libraries and community centres this winter as spaces where people can come together and stay warm during the difficult months ahead. We need out-of-the-box thinking.

Many organisations in our arts and culture sector are now on the brink of collapse, so the Scottish Government must explore creative solutions and utilise our cultural spaces to provide multiple benefits for our communities. I have spoken to many arts and culture organisations, and the general consensus is that there is a gap between what is said about the value of culture and the action required to support the sector now. As a result of Covid, people became isolated and were unable to access culture. As we build Covid recovery this winter, there are still people who are nervous about going to venues and people who cannot afford to access them. Those who work in the culture sector need support now.

Trade union Equity is clear that people are leaving the sector as a result of precarious employment and low salaries. Scotland’s Workshops said:

“Many of our staff are finding that they are deeply affected by cost of living increases, with sub average (£26,000) salaries common in the sector and many people working part time hours.”

Another quotation is that:

“27% of creative workers aged under 25 left creative occupations after lockdown in 2020, compared with 14% of workers aged 25 and over.”

If that continues, it will be catastrophic for Scotland’s culture, with the impact cutting across generations to come, affecting our tourism, our incomes, our economy, our communities and who we are. Therefore, we need action—not just in the culture sector but right across the public and private sectors, to give people decent work, decent salaries and an end to precarious and short-term employment.

In the previous debate, Paul O’Kane spoke powerfully about the need for fair pay for our carers. Yesterday, I joined posties in the Communication Workers Union who were protesting against the 2 per cent—2 per cent—pay rise that they are expected to live on. It is not acceptable. We have a cost of living crisis. People need support now, not warm words for our Government. That is why this debate is so important.

Paul McLennan (Scottish National Party, East Lothian)

Seven weeks ago, Liz Truss was ready to become Prime Minister. She was backed, overwhelmingly, by the Tory party membership, and who can forget the Scottish Tory party graphic that was shared by many of the Tory MSPs sitting just over there: “In Liz we Truss.” That went well, did it not?

The disastrous impact of the mini-budget cannot be overstated. The pound is at an all-time low, inflation is soaring, pension funds have had to be bailed out, future interest rate projections have trebled and mortgage offers have been withdrawn overnight. Faulty economics and a party that cannot promise an ounce of stability have sent mortgage rates through the roof and hard-working families deeper into poverty. The impact of Brexit on the cost of living crisis also cannot go unnoticed. Soaring prices and labour shortages are consequences of a decision that we in Scotland did not make.

The Resolution Foundation has estimated that there will be an £870 cost of living increase due to the currency fluctuations. Food costs have risen by 6 per cent. Ireland’s Economic and Social Research Institute reported that trade from the UK to the EU fell by 16 per cent in 2021. Peter Norris, the Virgin Group chair and co-convener of the Brexit monitoring group, the UK Trade and Business Commission, said that

“recovering lost trade with Europe should be a top priority”

as the country enters a recession.

This is a Labour debate. Unbelievably, Keir Starmer, in his own words, wants to “make Brexit work”. Brexit does not work and it will not work. There are no Brexit opportunities. I will give any Labour MSP who wants to stand up and give me one benefit of Brexit a chance to do so.

I did not think that anybody would stand up. Brexit impacts on the costs and the viability of businesses and, as we enter recession, it is adding to business worries.

Pam Duncan-Glancy (Labour, Glasgow)

Will the member take an intervention?

Paul McLennan (Scottish National Party, East Lothian)

I only have four minutes and I am conscious of the time. [

Laughter

.] I only have four minutes.

We need to rejoin the EU at the earliest opportunity. The only way to do that is through independence. People would expect an anti-EU stance from the Tories, but from Labour and the Lib Dems—really? Many times, we have heard Willie Rennie stand up and support the EU, but now he does not do that because he cannot.

Over the past couple of months, up and down East Lothian, I have met businesses that are suffering from rising energy prices and Brexit. My office carried out an extensive survey over the past four months. Of the businesses that I have spoken to, more than a third are considering having to make redundancies, more than half said that the situation has affected their training plans, and three quarters said that rising energy costs are affecting the viability of their business.

A similar picture is being painted by my constituents. Many families were already struggling to get by on stagnant incomes, but a poll that was conducted this month found that 72 per cent of East Lothian residents fear being unable to pay their energy bills. To put that in context, it represents 70,000 people. Some 43 per cent fear being unable to pay their rent or mortgage, and a quarter are worried about homelessness. In August, East Lothian Foodbank reported that the number of people who are using a county charity to help to put food on the table has jumped by 77 per cent compared with last year.

Whether in regard to heating homes or ensuring that people have enough to eat, the UK Government is failing. That is the price of a broken UK financial system. Rishi Sunak called the mini-budget “a mistake”, and although he called it out during the Tory leadership campaign, the Liz Truss Cabinet endorsed the moves. Indeed, we heard choruses of Tory MSPs—including Liz Smith, who is in the chamber just now—demand that the Scottish Government follow the Tory party tax cuts. Imagine if John Swinney had listened to those demands.

All of that has been imposed by a Government that we did not vote for. Surely Labour agrees that to take democratic decisions here in Scotland is our only hope—decisions that are made by the people of Scotland for the people of Scotland.

Douglas Lumsden (Conservative, North East Scotland)

This is an important debate as many of our constituents are facing a winter of worry and concern. Bills are going up, food prices are increasing and interest rates are on the rise. I am contacted every day by people who are looking for help and assistance. The UK Government has been quick to offer support, including by helping with energy bills for the most vulnerable, placing a cap on energy prices until April next year and cutting national insurance contributions, and I am sure that more support will be offered as the crisis develops.

The war in Ukraine has pushed up energy prices and also the prices of many everyday commodities, which has pushed inflation to higher levels than we have seen in many years. It was reported just yesterday by the Office for National Statistics that, as Willie Rennie mentioned, many of our everyday food prices are increasing at an eye-watering rate.

Ross Greer (Green, West Scotland)

I absolutely acknowledge the impact that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has had on the global economy. I just wonder whether Mr Lumsden has any idea why the UK has the highest inflation rate of any advanced economy on earth.

Douglas Lumsden (Conservative, North East Scotland)

If Mr Greer looks into the matter further, he will see that the inflation rates and interest rates in Germany are just as high as those in the UK. Surely that cannot be blamed on a Conservative Government.

The problems that we are facing are not unique. They are being faced by countries across the globe, and our UK Government will address them in the best interests of us all. That is the difference between our two Governments. We have one Government that is helping people and another that tries to use every opportunity to repeat its nationalist call for separation. It wants to act in its own self-interest, rather than in the people’s interest, by constantly talking about independence as the answer to all and any woes. The last thing that our nation needs is further instability, and a hard border with our closest and largest trading partner would give us just that. It is a disgrace that this devolved Government continually bangs that drum rather than focusing on the day job of bringing economic growth to this country.

It is the UK Government that is pushing ahead with free ports that will bring economic growth to our communities; with levelling up, which even SNP councils have welcomed; and with investment zones that will bring benefits for businesses that want to grow, develop and provide employment in our cities. The SNP Government is so full of grievance politics that it is failing to propose any policies that will actually deliver economic growth in this country.

The UK Government is providing a £650 cost of living payment for every household on means-tested benefits, a £300 extra cost of living payment to pensioners who are in receipt of the winter fuel payment, a £300 extra disability cost of living payment, a £400 cash grant to every household for energy via energy suppliers, a national insurance cut that will save 2.3 million Scots an average of £285 a year, and the list goes on. The UK Government is putting money back into people’s pockets when they need it most.

The SNP Government will tell us that it has no money even though it has the biggest core settlement ever. However, setting a budget is, of course, about priorities. The SNP has plenty of money for the things that it really cares about: a couple of hundred thousand pounds for a court case to push a divisive referendum and £20 million in the coffers for the pretendy referendum itself.

The people of Scotland need both Governments to work together to tackle the crisis. We need a laser focus on how we help vulnerable families and communities and grow our economy.

Bob Doris (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn)

Will the member give way?

Douglas Lumsden (Conservative, North East Scotland)

What we do not need is the SNP-Green coalition of chaos’s constant focus on division—

Bob Doris (Scottish National Party, Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn)

Will the member give way?