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I recently met Brigadier Andy Muddiman, who is the regional commander of the Royal Marines in Scotland. His role includes looking at how the joint services can help engage with and connect to local and regional businesses and communities to ensure that any mutual benefit is being capitalised on. What actions can be undertaken to support that objective?

I agree that every death of a person experiencing homelessness is a tragedy, and my thoughts are very much with those who have lost loved ones. Will the cabinet secretary outline what measures the Government is taking to tackle rough sleeping this winter?

In my constituency, more than 3,000 trees were blown over in John Muir country park in Dunbar alone, and the impact on wildlife elsewhere has been reported. What consideration has been given to addressing the effects on nature and the environment as we look to recover from the impacts of storm Arwen?

What measures are NHS Lothian and East Lothian health and social care partnership undertaking with regard to recruiting additional staff in East Lothian?

To ask the Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body what the Scottish Parliament’s budget is for both inbound and outbound school visits. (S6O-00419)

Which schools, if any, are regulars? How can schools that do not engage or that are in harder-to-reach areas be encouraged?

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. It is important that we set the context for the debate. Staffing levels in NHS Scotland are at an all-time high, after nine consecutive years of growth. As the cabinet secretary said, the Scottish Government has fully funded all places for Scotland-domiciled students who met the terms of their conditional offers from Scottish medical schools, and NHS staff numbers increased by 25,000 between 2006 and 2021. Last year alone, there was 3.6 per cent growth, with more than 5,000 more staff.

There is no doubt that there has been a rise in demand for services in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Scottish Government is investing in several ways to address the issue. It has established the national centre for workforce supply, with investment of £11 million. One of the centre’s areas of focus will be to offer boards expert advice in relation to labour market intelligence and to help to co-ordinate recruitment programmes.

That work needs to go hand in hand with social work recruitment. There is no doubt that Brexit has had a massive impact in that regard. In my constituency, staff have moved between the NHS and the care sector during the pandemic.

It is important to note that investment in medical and nursing education has been sustained during the pandemic. A record number commenced training in 2021: 4,206 people started nursing training and 1,138 people started in medicine. The numbers will rise further in the autumn. In addition, during the pandemic, work was undertaken with national bodies to ensure that as many former doctors, nurses and allied health professionals as possible who wanted to return to work could do so.

The Scottish Government has record staffing levels and the best-paid staff in the UK, having recently given staff a 3 per cent pay rise.

The proposed significant expansion in the number of trainee doctors underlines the Scottish Government’s commitment to support the NHS, not only in response to the pandemic but as we look beyond it and build resilience for the long term.

In addition, £32 million has been committed for a further 139 trainee doctor posts to support NHS services. In psychiatry, five posts will be recruited for a 2022 start, which will provide much-needed support for the delivery of mental health services in NHS Scotland. There will be a further 22 medical specialties that will benefit from the creation of additional training places, including clinical radiology, anaesthetics, clinical oncology, medical oncology, geriatric medicine and infectious diseases, along with neurology and respiratory medicine. The majority of those trainee doctor places will commence in August 2022.

Since 2014, 574 trainee expansion posts have been created in a wide range of specialties, 100 of which have been in general practice. The Scottish shape of training transition group, which is responsible for deciding on the number of trainee posts and the medical specialties in which they will be created, will be undertaking a similar process for 2023.

I want to touch on the Labour amendment, which mentions staff burn-out. That is an important issue. The Scottish Government is committed to safeguarding the mental wellbeing of the workforce and has committed an additional support package of £4 million for staff wellbeing. Having led a members’ business debate on mental health recently, I am aware that workers in health, social and social work experience higher levels of mental health problems than those in other groups, and that that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. The additional funding will focus on the physical and mental needs of staff and will, of course, include provision for hot drinks, food and other measures to aid rest and recuperation.

Importantly, another £5 million has been committed to the establishment of a health and social care mental health network to enhance existing wellbeing and mental health provision, including the national wellbeing hub and the 24/7 national wellbeing helpline.

In conclusion, the level of new domestic training places for medicine is proportionately higher in Scotland than the level anywhere else in the UK and, with the measures that have been highlighted, that will continue to be the case. I urge members to support the Scottish Government amendment.

The Scottish National Investment Bank is a vital ingredient in our recovery from Covid and our future prosperity. In other countries across the world, we have seen Governments use their extensive borrowing powers to invest in projects that are strategically important. Here, in Scotland, we have very limited borrowing powers. The SNIB was set three missions by the Scottish Government. It was to support the transition to net zero and build communities and promote equalities, alongside harnessing innovation in a way that enables our people to flourish.

As members said, the SNIB was to be provided with funding of £2 billion over the next 10 years. Recently, in evidence to the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, Willie Watt, the SNIB’s chairman, said that the Scottish Government’s statutory adviser, the Climate Change Committee

“has estimated that Scotland will need to invest £5 billion a year over the next 10 to 20 years”,

to meet its strict net zero targets. Willie Watt said that the SNIB needs to be able to seed-fund and leverage much of that funding opportunity, and he told the committee:

“The combination of good investments that make sense in relation to climate change and commercial returns is important. We want to foster and encourage that combination.”—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 21 September 2021; c 8.]

The SNIB has made an encouraging start and has made a profit of about £828,000 in the period since it opened 12 months ago. Accounts for the period reveal that growth profit for the period was about £3.8 million, with total equity from investments worth about £31 million. In total, the SNIB made eight investments across the period, which were worth £160 million. As the cabinet secretary said, that included £6 million for Sunamp in my constituency, which produces innovative heat batteries. I will visit Sunamp in the next few weeks. The company is looking to expand its team from 30 to 45.

On the ability to grow the SNIB, Willie Watt commented that he is humbled by the commitment, but

“it is not enough ... to meet our missions ... we need to be able to manage third-party capital”.—[Official Report, Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee, 21 September 2021; c 13.]

As the cabinet secretary said, the SNIB is seeking Financial Conduct Authority approval to borrow on its own balance sheet and raise capital from the private markets. That is important.

When the SNIB was endorsed, following Benny Higgins’s report, the First Minister described the plans as “truly transformative” and on a different scale from earlier Government initiatives. Mr Higgins said:

“This is a clear message that Scotland is a country ambitious in its growth aspirations, a country that is adaptable to change and a country that supports businesses across all stages of the business growth life cycle—the bank will be crucial as we compete in a global market to attract inward investors.”

Scotland remains a top choice for investors, outside London, which is vital when we consider the investment that is required post COP26, as the cabinet secretary said. The “EY Scotland Attractiveness Survey 2021” shows that Scotland remains a prime location for international companies that are considering foreign investment. Scotland’s foreign direct investment performance is outpacing that of Europe and the rest of the UK. Scotland has reinforced its position as the most attractive location for inward investment in the UK outside London—a position that it has held since 2014—with a 5.9 per cent increase in FDI projects. Growth in FDI in Scotland outpaced that of the UK and Europe, with Scotland’s share of UK inward investment growing from 9.1 per cent to 11 per cent.

The EY report examines Scotland’s performance and perceptions of the UK and Europe as destinations for FDI, with reference to a survey of 2,000 international investors. The report highlights an increase in investors who rank Scotland as the most attractive part of the UK in which to establish operations.

Members should imagine an independent Scotland with borrowing powers like those of any other country, supporting investment from all over the world. Scotland almost invented the modern world—televisions, telephones and penicillin, among other things. Voltaire said:

“We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilization.”

We can be that world leader, but we need the powers of independence to allow us to do so.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I mentioned a meeting that I had with the DWP and East Lothian works. Although I met them in my capacity as an MSP, I am a serving councillor in East Lothian, which is recorded in my entry in the register of members’ interests. I mention that for clarity.

Only last week, I arranged a meeting with Skills Development Scotland, the Department for Work and Pensions and East Lothian works to consider our skills and employability strategy. At that meeting, we discussed the situation in East Lothian and the sectors that have been impacted by Brexit. In hospitality, many businesses are not working at full capacity; in farming, many fruit farmers are telling me that they will not be planting fruit next year as they have no one to pick the fruit; and in care, all our providers are struggling to recruit.

At that meeting, we heard that our area’s unemployment rate is 5.8 per cent, which is higher than the national rate of 4.8 per cent, and that the unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds is also higher than the national rate of 12.4 per cent. However, for context—I hope that our Tory colleagues are listening to this—the UK unemployment rate for 16 to 24-year-olds is 17 per cent, so I will not take any lessons from Tories on the phenomenon.