Seòmar agus comataidhean

I welcome the announcements that have made today to give the best start in life for children and families. That will benefit thousands of people in East Lothian. How will the budget continue to drive down child poverty and, in particular, increase support for families?

The contribution of staff in Scotland’s colleges to education and society is hugely valued. How is the Scottish Government encouraging constructive discussion between staff and employers?

I am glad to engage in the debate. My background is with the Bank of Scotland—I worked in business and corporate banking for more than 20 years, and for that period I engaged with businesses on a daily basis. What businesses need more than anything is certainty.

The Scottish budget in 2025-26 protects the small business bonus scheme, which is the most generous small business relief in the UK. I know that, over a number of years, it has helped many businesses in every part of East Lothian. We have talked about the proposed revaluation, which will have an impact on businesses in East Lothian. I have had businesses contact me on that point, and I would be keen to hear the minister talk about it, although he has talked about engagement on the issue.

Tourism and hospitality is a major sector in East Lothian and in other parts of Scotland, but let us try to have a balanced and nuanced discussion and debate about the issue. Economic growth is at the heart of the SNP Government’s agenda. I know from discussions with the minister, the Deputy First Minister and the First Minister that they engage closely with business to drive economic growth in Scotland and to support consumers and local businesses.

On town centres, as we have heard, the Scottish Government supports funding for the Scotland loves local campaign, and more than £3 million has gone in to address retail crime, which we have heard about in the chamber. The Government also has the most generous business rates relief scheme in the UK. Of course, Scotland’s competitive non-domestic rates regime in 2025-26 includes a freeze on the basic property rate, which delivers the lowest rate in the UK. As Bob Doris mentioned, for 95 per cent of non-domestic properties in Scotland, that maintains the lowest rate in the UK.

I want to raise another point that was mentioned. I am aware of an email that was sent to all of us and to ministers from the Scottish Retail Consortium and the business improvement districts in Scotland. In the press release, the BIDs state:

“Our ambition is for Scotland’s cities and towns to continue to be great places to do business.”

The key word is “continue”. They state:

“Our cities and towns are the backbone of regional economies and communities across Scotland. The everyday economy drives footfall and provides local and flexible jobs and career opportunities for hundreds of thousands of Scots.”

I know that the minister has engaged with the Scottish Retail Consortium, as I and many others in the chamber have.

The BIDs add:

“Creating the best investment conditions for retail, hospitality and leisure premises is vital to keeping these businesses attractive to customers”.

They are asking for delivery on

“pledges about business rates competitiveness”

and support for

“commercial investment and growth in our city and town centres and regional economies.”

I am sure that the minister will address those points when it comes to the budget next week.

One key thing is that budgets are about priorities and achieving balance, which we need to have a nuanced debate on. We need to deliver a fairer and more progressive tax system, which is about raising additional revenue to invest in public services. In debate after debate, we have heard all the demands in the chamber. We need to protect the NHS, grow our economy and lift children out of poverty.

I will not take any lessons from the Tories on household bills, for example, given that they dragged Scotland out of the European Union against our will, made us poorer and reduced the funding that is available for public services. Nor will I take lessons from Labour, given its employer national insurance contributions tax on jobs.

Scotland’s economy outperformed that of the UK as a whole in 2024, when significant growth was recorded in Scotland. For the 10th year in a row, Scotland is the top destination in the UK for foreign direct investment outside London. Nearly one in six inward investment projects in the UK are in Scotland. A new Confederation of British Industry report shows that business investment in Scotland has risen to a 20-year high. We cannot get away from the fact that that contrasts with the fall in business investment across the United Kingdom.

The success of Scotland’s economy has come despite the UK Government’s tax on jobs and its low-growth model, and that is alongside the fact that unemployment in Scotland is lower than that in the rest of the UK. Scotland has a strong record on business growth and will continue to do so in the future.

I am speaking in this debate as a member of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, and I thank everyone who contributed to the inquiry, including the clerks.

The committee agreed to focus on two things in its inquiry—first, what is working and what is not working in the current civil legal aid system; and, secondly, what changes could be made in the short and longer terms to address access issues. I am sure that we could all have long discussions on those issues, but this is only a four-minute speech, so I will try to keep to the main points.

Let us remember that Scotland’s legal aid system is still one of the leading jurisdictions in Europe in terms of scope, eligibility and cost. However, the public rightly expect that publicly funded services will be responsive, user centred and accountable and that they will work effectively. The committee heard that in the evidence that we took. The Scottish Government recognises the need for further reform to ensure that Scotland has a modern and responsive system that provides services as efficiently as possible where and when they are needed. We heard about that from the minister and other speakers in the debate.

Although the Scottish Government’s launch of a legal aid discussion paper was welcome, the committee is disappointed that legislation to give effect to reform has not been introduced in the current session of Parliament. The committee recognises that, at this juncture in the session, such legislation will now not be introduced. Later in my speech, I will touch on what needs to be done before the end of the session. However, in the next session, Parliament must make legislating to reform civil legal assistance an immediate priority, and I am sure that the equalities committee will take that forward. There is a need for long-term structural reform of the current system. In the meantime, the Scottish Government should be taking all the steps that it can take, short of primary legislation, to ameliorate the situation.

The committee is concerned about access to legal aid in Scotland. As we have heard this afternoon, there are lots of issues, particularly in relation to domestic abuse. I have had such issues in my constituency, as I am sure other members have, and we need to take them up as soon as possible. In seeking to respond to the issues, it is critical that there is a better understanding of the extent of unmet need. We heard from various sectors about that, and various speakers have mentioned it today. We really need to get to the bottom of that, because any response to the issue must begin with a proper assessment of the levels of not just geographic need, but issue-related need as well. To that end, the committee encourages SLAB and the Law Society of Scotland to work together to develop a better evidence base on demand for and supply of legal aid-funded legal services.

The committee has significant concerns about the current administrative processes and the damaging effects that they are having on relationships between legal practitioners and SLAB and on the capacity to undertake trauma-informed approaches. The committee calls on the Scottish Government and SLAB to take action to address those concerns. The committee recognises that the current processes exist within a legal framework and that, in some cases, changes cannot be made immediately. However, the committee considers that removing administrative burdens could not only address some of the challenges in the system but result in financial savings for SLAB and the legal profession while also improving the experience of those who engage with the civil legal assistance system. As the committee notes at the beginning of the report, there is an urgent need for action to improve the delivery of civil legal assistance and, in turn, access to justice.

It is disappointing that legislation has not been introduced in the current session to reform the civil legal assistance system. We heard from the minister about the action that has been taken in the meantime. However, there has been an awareness of the need for reform since the current session began. It is really important that the matter is picked up and worked on immediately in the next session. The committee recognises that it is now too late to introduce such primary legislation in the current session. Although the committee recognises that some changes can be made only by way of primary legislation, we urge the Scottish Government to make whatever changes it can make in the interim to effect an improvement in access to justice.

The committee report stated:

“The Scottish Government must work with SLAB now to progress reforms not requiring primary legislation. Specifically, in the short-term, the Scottish Government must ... Proceed with reforms to increase fees paid to legal practitioners; ... Find more opportunities for traineeships to increase capacity”—

we have heard about issues around that—and

“Consider proposals to reduce administrative burdens and bureaucracy, thereby improving relations between SLAB and legal practitioners and creating an environment in which trauma informed approaches can thrive”.

I mentioned domestic abuse.

In the longer term, the committee welcomed

“the emphasis being placed on mixed models of delivery and user voice by the Scottish Government”

and asked that

“the Scottish Government consider preventative approaches and public legal education”

as part of its discussion on longer-term measures.

The summit brought together people from clinical services, education, the Government, academia and policy. What key points were raised at the summit? How will the voice of people with lived experience be heard in relation to that issue, and where will it implement policy?

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland on its proposal, “The future of provision for neurodevelopmental conditions”. (S6O-05303)

I thank Daniel Johnson for securing the debate. Daniel and I have had a couple of chats about this issue over the past couple of months, and we are all aware of the issue through our constituents. It is multilayered and multi-agency, and it impacts on children and families in health and education settings.

As many others will have done, I met the RCP in Scotland just last week to discuss its report. A few issues have come through. A key issue is the impact of neurodevelopmental conditions on many aspects of people’s lives; indeed, they have major emotional, social and health impacts.

Daniel Johnson’s point about access to diagnosis and medication is incredibly important. As we have discussed, there is also an issue in relation to GPs in health boards such as NHS Lothian. The issue of standardisation is really important, given that different GPs take different approaches.

Daniel Johnson mentioned the number of people who are impacted—NDCs impact roughly 10 to 15 per cent of the population. It is good that people are beginning to talk about the subject, because I think that such conditions are probably significantly underdiagnosed.

Between 2019 and 2021, the number of referrals increased between 500 and 800 per cent across health boards. That increase is being driven by several factors, one of which is that society is more aware of such conditions. In addition, there are unmet historical needs, as well as population growth. There is no denying the impact of Covid, either.

As the RCP has said, this debate is not necessarily about finance, although I will touch on that subject in a moment. More important is the need for standardisation of the referral, treatment and support pathways, and I hope that the minister will pick up on that issue—I have already had a quick chat with him about it. Without a nationally agreed pathway, it is difficult to see how we can move forward. The pressure will only grow in the coming months and years as people become more aware of neurodevelopmental conditions. Constituents regularly approach me on the subject, because, even within East Lothian, GPs take very different approaches.

As for what we should do in the future, which is the key issue addressed in the RCP report, there are some lessons that we should take on board. As part of the national autism implementation plan, a feasibility study on pathways was undertaken in 2021; the fact is that we are still talking about pathways, and there is still a need for such pathways to replace single-condition approaches. That is an important point. Those pathways must be accessible across the 14 health boards.

Daniel Johnson also talked about the need to deliver local stepped care pathway models. I interact with Stronger Together for Autism and Neurodivergence, which is very active in East Lothian, and that is one of its key aims. Such models include third sector and community services, such as access to self-help, peer support and a range of other services prior to—and, of course, after—diagnosis.

The RCP makes a number of other key recommendations that must be progressed. For example, it talks about the need for a governance framework and a competency-building framework at all levels of service provision.

Daniel Johnson touched on the delivery of the RCP’s four-tiered pathway proposal. The first tier involves a national public health approach, which is all about developing a public health campaign to promote awareness and understanding of neurodevelopmental conditions, with an emphasis on self-management.

The second tier is the availability of national self-help resources, which will involve creating a centralised platform to provide comprehensive self-help. The third is about establishing specialist third sector commissioning for NDCs. That provision must be localised; indeed, we have discussed the importance of that with NHS Lothian. There is almost a blame game going on, with the health board saying that GPs are responsible for local provision, and we need to clear that up. A key issue is how we prioritise investment in developing local provision, and there needs to be a multidisciplinary approach that includes clinicians and GPs.

There is much more that I could say, but I conclude by thanking Daniel Johnson for securing the debate. The issue will continue to be debated, and I look forward to hearing from the minister on the RCP’s report in particular.

I am pleased to speak in the debate as a member of the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, and I thank the committee clerks and other members. I was not a member of the committee when it took evidence in its inquiry. However, I was at its meeting on 10 December, which was a reminder of not only why the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015 remains one of the Parliament’s most important pieces of equalities legislation, but why the implementation process must continue to be sharpened.

I also thank Karen Adam for her work on the committee, and for—as has been mentioned—her work on the issue over a number of years and her passion for that work.

I start with the fundamentals: BSL is not just a communication tool—it is a language of Scotland, it is recognised in law, and it is part of our national cultural identity. The 2015 act is about language rights, not optional extras, and the rights that it establishes must be lived in practice and not left sitting on paper.

We heard powerful evidence from deaf organisations and BSL users, and their message was consistent. When the 2015 act works, it transforms access, confidence and participation. When it does not work, it is because systems have not shifted fast enough, leadership has not been clear enough, or delivery has been too uneven across public bodies. One of the challenges is ensuring access across all the different parts of Scotland.

That inconsistency is at the heart of the challenge. We have good practice in pockets—for example, public bodies that take their duties seriously, embed BSL into planning and work directly with deaf communities—but we also have areas where progress has been slow, reactive or reliant on one or two committed individuals. Rights cannot depend on the enthusiasm of a few. They need structure, accountability and resource.

I want to highlight three themes that came through strongly in the committee’s inquiry, and the first is leadership and accountability. Public bodies have legal duties under the 2015 act, but leadership determines whether those duties become realities. Too often, BSL is treated as an add-on and delivered through communications teams instead of being rooted in strategic planning. Where senior leaders take responsibility, we see measurable progress. Where they do not, we see drift.

I support the committee’s position that future BSL plans must include clear performance indicators—I asked the Deputy First Minister about that issue at committee this week—and that compliance must not be a tick-box exercise. We all have a part to play in ensuring that compliance is embedded. We need mechanisms that will ensure that, if Parliament sets a legal obligation, it will be met. That means early intervention when bodies are falling behind and greater transparency for BSL users on what progress is—and is not—being made.

The second theme that I will talk about is access to essential public services. The evidence that we heard from deaf individuals makes the stakes very clear. If someone cannot access a GP appointment, understand justice processes, communicate with their child’s school or engage with social security systems, their rights are compromised. There must not be a postcode lottery of BSL access. Some national health service boards have made real advances, particularly on digital access and interpreter pathways, but others are struggling with inconsistency and workforce pressures. That tells me that the system needs clearer expectations and firmer direction. Deaf communities should not have to navigate the gaps that we know exist.

We also heard concerns about education, especially in relation to BSL in early years and school settings. If we are serious about equality of opportunity, we must treat early access to language and communication as non-negotiable.

The third theme is the BSL workforce. That issue sits behind every other point that is raised. The 2015 act cannot deliver on its promise without a strong, sustainable, well-supported interpreting and translation workforce. The committee heard about long waits, overstretched interpreters and the pressure that is placed on BSL tutors and trainers. We need a workforce pipeline that reflects the scale of the act’s ambition. That includes training capacity, career progression, fair pay and national co-ordination. We simply cannot base a rights-based system on precarious labour, and deaf BSL users must be at the centre, shaping what good access looks like.

The committee’s job is not to point fingers; it is to ensure that the 2015 act does what this Parliament intended. However, scrutiny requires honesty, and the honest assessment is that progress has been made, but it is too uneven; that rights exist, but too many people still have to fight to have them respected; and that the system has created plans, but plans alone cannot guarantee delivery.

We have a responsibility as a committee and as a Parliament to push the system towards consistency, ambition and accountability. Let us not forget that the 2015 act remains world leading. Scotland was the first nation in the UK to recognise BSL in law. However, leadership means staying ahead and not looking back.

I want Scotland to be a country where BSL users never have to explain, justify or negotiate their right to equal access; where public bodies do not wait for reminders or complaints before acting; and where deaf communities genuinely shape policy, not as consultees but as partners. That was the spirit behind the act, and it must guide the next stage of implementation.

The committee will continue to scrutinise progress closely. Our role is to ensure that the lived experience of BSL users matches the promises that have been made in the chamber because, ultimately, equality is measured not by legislation alone but by the lives that people are able to lead.

To maximise the benefit of Scotland’s renewable energy resources and reach net zero, it is vital that we invest in storage capacity. Will the cabinet secretary say more about the role that storage systems play in our renewables mix and about how the Scottish Government is working to make sure that our local communities see the benefit of local infrastructure?

On Tuesday 18 November, I arrived at Hampden park for the opening of the gates at 6.15. I walked in with a few other early birds and stood thinking what the stadium would be like at 9.45. Four minutes in, after the Scott McTominay wonder goal, the dream was on. Then, Denmark scores and the old fears return. Shankland scores again. Hopes rise. Denmark scores again. Six minutes of injury time goes up and even now I feel good about our chances. The ball falls to Kieran Tierney. What a strike, what a feeling! Eight minutes into six minutes of injury time, and the nerves are shot. Kenny McLean wins the ball and shoots. What an incredible feeling as the ball hits the back of the net—“Freed from Desire” blasts out and it sinks in: Scotland have qualified. The passion and love for football is unrivalled. The whole country goes crazy; scenes from pubs and homes are shown from all over Scotland. My flights and accommodation are booked. The ticket scramble now awaits.

What does qualifying for the world cup mean to football more generally in Scotland? It means a few things. It must leave a legacy for our youth game, with investment in the grass roots and, of course, the elite youth set-up—I say that as someone who had the pleasure to coach at that level with Hibernian for 11 years. I note that the Scottish Football Association recently announced that it will not continue its performance schools, which produced players such as Billy Gilmour. There is also talk of reducing support to Club Academy Scotland’s youth academies, which would be a retrograde step. We need further investment in those academies, so that players can play for our clubs at a younger age. We need further investment in the women’s and girls’ clubs and academies. The success of the investment in academies by the French Football Federation and the English Football Association demonstrates that. On the back of the financial benefits of the world cup, we need to invest in our youth game and our women’s game, and we will reap the benefits of doing so.

Many of us have campaigned for Scotland matches to be shown on terrestrial television. Thankfully, a deal was agreed before the Denmark game, which meant that those who were not fortunate enough to have tickets could enjoy—and endure—every minute of the qualifying campaign on BBC Scotland, and a generation of Scotland fans were able to witness something that they had never witnessed before in their lifetime. However, in the aftermath of that game, one thing that was overlooked was that the deal with the BBC to broadcast the qualifying matches ran only until the end of that campaign, and it is likely that future qualifying campaigns will again be available only on subscription services. I believe that the home nations’ international matches and women’s competitive matches should be available for all to watch and should be included in Ofcom’s list of category A sporting events, which must be shown on free-to-air television.

We all know that the members of our magnificent Scotland team are huge role models for our children and young people, and they will no doubt inspire our next generation of football players. Along with that, however, come responsibilities, one of which is the responsibility to stop exploiting children on behalf of the alcohol industry. Big alcohol brands, familiar and not so familiar, will be queuing at the door of Scotland’s football authorities to sponsor the team and to get their brands in front of the customers of today and tomorrow. That type of marketing is designed to boost sales by attracting new consumers and targeting heavy drinkers, but it also results in young people starting to consume alcohol at an earlier age and increases the chances of binge drinking. I expect and encourage the football authorities to take their responsibilities seriously and reject alcohol sponsorship in favour of industries that do less harm in our country.

I thank Keith Brown for lodging the motion. We all know the passion that football inspires, and, like Keith Brown, I am a long-suffering Hibs fan. Let us enjoy the build-up to the world cup. As they say: no Scotland, no party.