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I thank Jamie Halcro Johnston for allowing us to debate, on the final day of the parliamentary session, the many issues that he and I have fought most hard on over the course of it.

I have been really lucky with my regional colleagues—Rhoda Grant, Edward Mountain, Ariane Burgess and Tim Eagle in particular. Whether through bumping into each other on surgery tours or working together on committees, they have had a frequent and usually positive influence on my working life. Although Jamie Halcro Johnston and I have interacted less often, we have never clashed outwith this chamber. That is the kind of collegiate working across parties that we should be promoting.

In my first speech in the Parliament, I spoke about the mental health crisis in our region. When I made that speech, only 137 days had passed since my mother died of Covid and 44 months had passed since I was homeless. That was now 1,758 days ago, and I have learned so much since then, from the finer points of goose management to the difficulties in delivering island housing developments. However, my outlook on the core issues that we face has not changed, nor has my passion for addressing them.

The day I made my first speech, I told the Parliament that I would spend the next five years doing everything in my power to improve the lives of others who make the Highlands and Islands their home, that I would work with colleagues across the chamber to make sure that we are getting it right, and that I would use my lived experience to contribute to discussions because I deeply understand the issues faced by my constituents. That is what I did. It was so meaningful to me to serve as the minister with responsibility for addressing depopulation. I am so proud of the addressing depopulation action plan that I published then, and the scale of the work that went into it from the communities that I worked with, many of which were rural or island based.

I worked with the transport secretary to ensure that young islanders benefit from our free bus travel scheme, which has now been extended to interisland ferries. From this week, my constituents are benefiting from a £2 fare cap for single bus journeys; I am delighted that the trains that I travel on every week are due for an upgrade next year; and now that we have a set timescale for the Nairn bypass, I look forward to seeing spades in the ground for that very soon.

I will never forget amending what is now the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 to allow us to collect data that will allow future Parliaments to make better decisions, better policy and better law.

When I look back at all that and look forward to the work that remains, I am proud of what has been achieved, but I have a deep feeling of unfinished business. I, the SNP and the Parliament have more to do to ensure the sustainability of rural and island areas and the whole of the Highlands and Islands region, so that locals can access high-quality public services.

On the day I made my first speech in June 2021, I also spoke about how, no matter which direction I am travelling in, I look out for the Kessock bridge lights in the distance and know that I am nearly home. Much as I will miss the contributions of many colleagues who do not plan to return, including the cabinet secretary, Elena Whitham, and Joe FitzPatrick, whose contribution at First Minister’s questions I welled up listening to earlier, and much as I value the work that we all do here, I will head home on Friday morning, and I cannot wait to look ahead and see that bridge.

I will spend the next six weeks working hard to come back here and represent that incredible Highlands and Islands constituency, and I hope that anyone who does so takes the issues just as seriously. I know that society and the Parliament are best when protected characteristics and geography do not limit our ambition. There is a lot of work to do to ensure that people in the Highlands and Islands and young people like me who are homeless and struggling or disabled and fighting are supported to be contributors and to be happy, healthy and productive individuals—maybe even leaders or MSPs.

14:26

Martin Whitfield made a comparison with the election of deputy presiding officers. Will he confirm that he does not envisage more rounds of exhaustive balloting for every single committee convener?

Martin Whitfield made a comparison with the election of deputy presiding officers. Will he confirm that he does not envisage more rounds of exhaustive balloting for every single committee convener?

Martin Whitfield made a comparison with the election of deputy presiding officers. Will he confirm that he does not envisage more rounds of exhaustive balloting for every single committee convener?

Martin Whitfield made a comparison with the election of deputy presiding officers. Will he confirm that he does not envisage more rounds of exhaustive balloting for every single committee convener?

Martin Whitfield made a comparison with the election of deputy presiding officers. Will he confirm that he does not envisage more rounds of exhaustive balloting for every single committee convener?

The Scottish National Party’s budget provides welcome investment in Scotland’s primary care service. Can the cabinet secretary say any more about how the investment in new walk-in centres will address the 8 am rush and increase access to primary care? Does she agree that Labour members should welcome that ambitious move instead of opposing it for opposition’s sake?

Defence experts cited in a recent RenewableUK report have urged for there to be an acceleration of renewables development in order to shield against further geopolitical shocks. Does the minister agree that it is more important than ever for Scotland to develop renewables generation and storage capacity in order to enhance our energy security for businesses and households across Scotland?

I have a note from the Mental Welfare Commission, which found that strategies for monitoring and reviewing existing independent advocacy services are “variable”. The bill is quiet on how that system would be monitored and reviewed, so is the member confident that independent advocates would do their job and do what he intends with his amendments, without steering into pressuring patients or promoting assisted dying?

Colleagues will know that, in general, I am a big fan of data. It is important that, if the bill becomes law, we collect the right data.

Amendment 287 would require reporting under the act to include analysis of trends, patient safety risks and safeguarding concerns. There are international comparisons, which I have heard both sides of the debate—for and against the bill—pick apart and hold up as examples. We do not know who would access assisted dying in Scotland, how that would look for them or what impacts it would have. I expect that the picture would be different even in the Highlands and Islands compared with Glasgow. In the context of an island nation with pockets of deprivation, depopulation and even a lack of vitamin D, we do not know with certainty what impact protected characteristics would have on our population and the way in which it would seek to exercise rights under the bill if it is passed.

Undoubtedly, without data collection on equalities trends, there would be compelling anecdotal evidence on both sides to claim that there was no equalities impact or that there were extreme equalities impacts.

Amendment 287 would let us keep an eye on what was actually happening here, not on what we might think or claim or guess was happening and not on what was happening in only the best or worst cases, but on trends and biases over time. We would need to know whether groups with particular protected characteristics were using assisted dying more or less than expected in comparison with others. We have a duty to dig deeper into any trends and, to do so, we would have to know what those trends were.

UN experts have warned that disabled people and older people, especially older disabled people, might feel subtly pressured to end their lives prematurely because of the lack of appropriate services and support. That seems inevitable to me and I am deeply concerned about the inherent risk of ableism being promoted through the use of assisted dying, which is why I cannot support the bill. However, we know that those inequalities span more than disability.

If assisted dying were offered in Scotland, I would also want to know whether poorer people, women, carers and racialised minorities were using it more or less than others. I would want to know whether the known risks to those groups in healthcare generally, the difficulties that they face in accessing support services and the higher prevalence of disability, degenerative conditions, poverty and sexually transmitted diseases were having an impact on why and when assisted dying was used. What we did with that data would be up to us, but I hope that the Parliament can agree that we should at least collect it.

Amendment 284 would similarly require the collection of data on safeguarding concerns and ensure that, if the act worked as it should and resulted in referrals to adult protection, social work, police or other safeguarding authorities, the information on those referrals could be taken into account when any policy changes or adaptations were made to the legislation and how it operated in future.

Amendment 284 would also require a summary of the outcomes of those safeguarding investigations. Concerns would undoubtedly be raised that amounted to nothing, with no risk to the patient found. That would be great and would show that the system was working as it should. I would, however, expect those who are involved in delivering assisted dying to be cautious, to instigate investigations when there were slight concerns, and to allow those investigations to determine whether or not the concerns were founded. It would be important to collect these data so that we could see that the overall picture was as expected and hoped for by everybody who has spoken to safeguarding in these debates, regardless of their position on the bill itself. My amendments would ensure that we captured outcomes, too, and I hope that everybody would be reassured to know that people who were in a position to spot issues erred on the side of caution.

Audrey Nicoll’s amendments in the group are also important as they seek to ensure transparency. The group is essential. We must be able to accurately review and reflect on the operation of the legislation if it becomes law.

The intent of Bob Doris’s amendments is also important. I heard Elena Whitham’s arguments about the SIMD. However, knowing how unhelpful the SIMD can be in describing rural and island poverty, and knowing that I live in the highest-ranked SIMD area in the Highlands, I am not sure that that general data set is helpful in checking the socioeconomic status of people who would make use of assisted dying. We should not leave it to guesses and hope. We would have to know who was accessing it and what issues had come up as a result.