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The First Minister might be aware that Amey plans to make up to 100 road maintenance workers in Ayrshire and Dumfries and Galloway redundant. Those workers are funded by a Scottish Government contract. The A77 is one of the most dangerous roads in Scotland and causes constant disruption to the economy of the south-west due to its poor state of repair. My constituents have frequent lengthy waits at road works and often face miles of diversions. Will the First Minister travel that road with me and explain to my constituents why 100 workers who should be helping to maintain that important road are losing their jobs?

Construction apprenticeships are essential and there is demand for them. However, in my South Scotland region there are two areas that we must work on. The first is to better link employers and colleges to agree numbers in order to meet the skills gap. Secondly, local qualification courses are a real barrier in rural areas, and long distances mean that we lose apprentices early on because of the difficulty in accessing courses. What can be done to address those issues?

I thank the cabinet secretary for his letter in response to my concerns about rural museums and the cost of displaying delicate articles that need environmental protection, such as the tapestries at Dean castle in my South Scotland region. In the light of the cabinet secretary’s role and the many contacts that he has in the sector, would he be able to support the possibility of capturing data on the specific reason for the removal of items from public display?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I do not think that my app connected. I would have voted no.

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the United Kingdom Government regarding the use of Scottish Government-owned infrastructure by the United States military, in light of US air strikes on Iran. (S6T-02608)

I appreciate the cabinet secretary’s response. I, too, take my responsibilities seriously. Will the cabinet secretary join me, as well as—I am sure—the majority of Scots and people across the world, in saying that we cannot engage in diplomacy through violence, that we must call for peace and that all our efforts towards peace must be peaceful. For our part, that must include not selling to the US or Israel weapons manufactured in Scotland that might be used to move the world closer to war.

The cabinet secretary will know that Prestwick airport is in my region, South Scotland. Can he assure my constituents that sites such as Prestwick airport will not be used to facilitate attacks on Iran by the USA, nor to support Israeli aircraft, given that those efforts have no United Nations backing whatsoever? Will he also be clear about what US activity is currently happening at the Prestwick airport site?

I thank Marie McNair for bringing this important debate to the chamber. On behalf of Scottish Labour, I welcome action mesothelioma day 2025, which will be marked on 4 July. In my years in Parliament, I have been pleased to stand with Marie McNair and other members to play my part in raising awareness of this cruel condition, calling for further research and calling for the condition to be properly understood as an industrial injury.

Of course, as other speakers in the debate have said, we must ensure that proper compensation is afforded to sufferers and their families. Mesothelioma is a rare and hard-to-treat form of cancer. As stated in the motion, it is usually caused by exposure to asbestos. However, we also know, having debated the issue many times in the Parliament, that, despite asbestos having been banned more than a quarter of a century ago, many continued—and continue—to work in environments where it was and is present. Indeed, it is still found in buildings right across Scotland.

We must address the issue. With 2,700 new cases diagnosed every year in the UK, and 200 in Scotland, it remains of the utmost importance that we raise awareness of the symptoms of the illness and encourage people to be cautious and to get any symptoms checked. As with other forms of cancer, identifying the illness quickly can prolong life and ensure more pain-free management of a cruel disease.

I have known about the disease from a very young age, having grown up in a working-class mining community. According to the most up-to-date data that I could find about my home area in East Ayrshire, there were significant numbers of mesothelioma deaths between 1981 to 2019, as well as a continuation of deaths past that date, with the on-going impact of asbestos exposure. It is important that I, as a member who represents an area with a high rate of asbestos, ensure that we properly document the rates of illness and death, and I commit to doing so. The reality for the people in my area is that the industrial work—mainly mining—in the early part of the last century, and right up until the 1980s and 1990s, exposed men, in particular, to asbestos. However, as has been mentioned by other members, we know that secondary exposure through the washing of clothing, a job often undertaken by women, increased the risk to their health, too.

Many people who suffered exposure to asbestos during their working life have never received any serious compensation, often due to employers jumping through hoops to claim that the cause of their cancer cannot be properly proven. That is why the work of groups such as Clydebank Asbestos Group, Action on Asbestos and other community action groups is so important. Their fight against big business is second to none, and we must always recognise it. This condition, and others, have exposed the approach that big business and the insurance giants take to workers’ health, and we must make it clear that people are worth more and that working-class people—the men and women who have built and maintained our country—must be compensated, should their lives be impacted by or lost due to the nature of their work.

Of course, I welcome the Scottish Law Commission’s report, which was mentioned by Marie McNair. However, although it is an important step, I fear that there is more work to do, and I call on the minister to give us, as Marie McNair asked, some feedback so that we can keep fighting to get this right. It is important, too, that we keep fighting for proper compensation and—importantly—for proper health and safety in workplaces to ensure that the rights of workers are at the centre of all that we do.

I thank Jackson Carlaw for his clarity in responding to the original question. It might be helpful for us to understand why the SPCB took the decision to introduce changes now, rather than wait for the EHRC’s statutory guidance.

Campaign groups from NHS Grampian right down to my own South Scotland region believe that there is a shortfall of as many as 1,800 GPs, and that that number is a more realistic target if the Government hopes to meet its ambition of achieving better-quality care that is closer to home.

Our health service is crying out for more GPs, yet a cut in GP funding means that practices are unable to recruit the staff that they desperately need. Does the cabinet secretary recognise that although the training of medical students is important, it does not help matters when students are unable to get employment after graduation?