Seòmar agus comataidhean

I thank Sarah Boyack for bringing the debate to the chamber. Throughout her time in the Parliament, she has long been a champion of affordable, accessible and sustainable transport, and it is welcome that she brings the voices of the Scottish Youth Parliament to the Scottish Parliament debate today.

It has been a great delight to read through the work of the Scottish Youth Parliament on transport. I congratulate the convener of the group, David McGilp MYSP, who represents my home area of Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, which is in my South Scotland region. It is tremendous to see that.

Public transport is an asset to many of our constituents, none more so than our young people. Within my region, there are many remote and rural towns and villages whose connections with larger towns and cities rely completely on good public transport. Whether it is for employment, attending hospital appointments or even visiting family and friends, constituents depend on timely, reliable and regular transport. From the young to the elderly, public transport is a vehicle for social connection, and that must be considered when making decisions on provision.

For young people, affordable and accessible transport is a key factor in enabling educational and employment opportunities. The under-22s free bus travel scheme has been a welcome step in improving the affordability of public transport, and it has been fantastic in improving access to travel for many young people.

In my region, the distance between towns and villages can be tens of miles, so the scheme is welcomed by the young people who are completely reliant on bus services. In the rural community where I live, pupils from about 15 schools came together to go to the school that I went to. We could be connected with our young friends at school, but it was really difficult when we were out of school in the long holiday periods, for example. My children have made really good use of the under-22s scheme, which allows them to have a real connection with their friends over the holidays.

I note the committee’s research. The young people have said that the scheme is a great thing to have but that having limited services limits the opportunities. That is certainly true in my region.

Finally, I want to recognise the human rights aspects of the issue. Under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children and young people have the right

“to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities”

and the right

“to participate fully in cultural and artistic life”.

It is the responsibility of the Government and all of us in the Parliament to encourage the provision of appropriate and equal cultural, artistic, recreational and leisure opportunities. Access to affordable and reliable transport plays a huge part in ensuring that right. We must all work together to ensure that the experiences of young people are as good as they possibly can be and that the opportunities work for everyone, particularly for those in rural areas. I hope that the minister has some information and feedback for us in that regard.

I thank Sarah Boyack again for bringing the debate to the Parliament. I wish the Scottish Youth Parliament more successes, and I hope that it continues to push us to make sensible decisions around accessibility, infrastructure and affordability for young people in all aspects of our community, so that no one is left behind.

Scottish Labour warned the Scottish Government about the consequences of poor NHS workforce planning. I am absolutely clear about Scottish Labour’s position on NHS staff: they are hard working and dedicated, and we owe so much to them.

However, our staff are under intense pressure because of the SNP Government. Agency spending is unsustainable, and vacancy rates are rising to alarming levels. In rural areas such as Dumfries and Galloway, in my region of South Scotland, the consequences of those issues and the recruitment and retention of staff are a key challenge, and that has been the case under the SNP Government.

Apprenticeships offer a good way of expanding the workforce and providing flexibility to people who live in those areas. Has the Government made any progress at all in developing apprenticeship models for healthcare workers, as recommended by the nursing and midwifery task force?

I thank Stuart McMillan for bringing the debate to the chamber. I also thank him for his contribution in raising so many of the issues that people with bladder cancer face.

Having listened to the debate, I also thank Emma Harper for her contribution about her nursing experience and Dr Gulhane for his contribution about some of the other technologies that we can use. All the speeches so far have been really helpful. It is important that the Parliament considers this cancer, given that we have such poor outcomes in Scotland. Mr McMillan described the reasons for that well, so I will not set them out again. Raising awareness of cancers such as bladder cancer is pivotal to ensuring early diagnosis and improving prognosis.

In my short contribution, I want to raise the issue of health inequalities. The current health inequalities in Scotland are significant. Unfortunately—as, I know, we all agree—they are worsening, particularly in relation to healthy life expectancy, with stark differences between the most and least deprived areas. We all want to make a difference to that.

Health inequalities exist across a range of health conditions, including coronary heart disease, diabetes, chronic pain, poor oral health and—crucially, given tonight’s debate—cancers. We have to make sure that communities come forward for screening in a timely manner. The latest public health figures show that the incidence of all cancers was 24 per cent greater in the most deprived areas than in the least deprived and that death rates were 78 per cent higher. We take that very seriously. I am sure that the minister will remark on it, as I know that she works hard to ensure that we have strategies to address it.

Screening and early detection are incredibly important if we are to turn around cancer outcomes, particularly for bladder cancer, as we have heard tonight. People do not always come forward for tests and screening, but screening gives us the opportunity to make sure that our most vulnerable constituents access important services. At times, the Government has run early cancer detection campaigns, which I support. In my research for the debate, I was particularly pleased to read about the STV and Fight Bladder Cancer blood in pee campaign, which ran in Scotland in December 2024 to raise awareness of bladder cancer. That was one of the few things that I could find specifically on bladder cancer.

That is a fantastic suggestion. Emma Harper is right to say that, if a good campaign is working, we should get it out across Scotland. We should all put our forces behind that, through any channel that we can use.

The campaign that I mentioned talked in its notes about lower-income communities. It tried to encourage people from all backgrounds to access their GP immediately if they had any problems. The initiative aimed to combat late diagnosis, which, as we have heard, is a major contributor to the poorer outcomes for bladder cancer in Scotland. By encouraging people in lower-income areas, in particular, we can get better outcomes.

Again, I thank Stuart McMillan for bringing the issue to the chamber. I acknowledge the great speeches from other members, and I know that the minister will also give us a good speech. I hope that, through having the debate, we have started to play our part in turning the issue around. I thank all the health staff, charities and affected families for the information that they share, which allows us to debate in this way.

Of course.

I am interested in the argument that social security should be seen as preventative spend, in how we talk about the matter and in the question whether treating social security as that kind of spend helps with our decision making on the Scottish budget and our seeking to ensure that that approach happens. I wonder whether we can hear from Mairi Spowage first, if she does not mind, because I know that her organisation has responded on that issue.

I am interested in thinking about the issue in terms of the Scottish budget. Has the Government done enough work on the preventative approach? If we go down that route—we have argued that there are lots of reasons to do so—how will we make sure that it works in terms of the budget?

I thank the Government for bringing this debate to the chamber. In a previous debate, in June, I said that we need more serious discussion of our country’s role in these conflicts and how we can alter our actions to limit the likelihood of war. However, let us be honest: this has gone far beyond war. It is outright aggression on an entire population of people, who have been bombarded with bombs in what is—let us be frank—a planned and targeted operation. Netanyahu’s regime seeks to cleanse Gaza of its people, and there must be consequences. We cannot stand by. This Parliament needs to challenge that, and I am glad that the Government has brought this debate to the chamber in Government time.

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the motion and the amendments. It is our duty to speak out and expose what is happening in the hope that, ultimately, it makes some difference to those who are suffering an unimaginable life.

I receive constituent correspondence about this issue every single day, in every form that you can imagine. Scots are disgusted by what they are seeing, and they see only a fraction of what has gone on. We can be sure of that, as journalists have been stopped from entering the besieged strip, and those who are already there have faced starvation, severe malnutrition, deliberate targeting and, ultimately, death. That is a sombre thought about brave people who merely seek to tell the truth to the rest of the world. I believe that it is my duty to be clear about those crimes and to push all Governments to take action so that those who elected me know that their voice is being heard in the Scottish Parliament.

Our constituents expect Governments to take peaceful action that creates consequences for the regime. Failure to act makes us complicit, and it is to my eternal shame that many people in positions of power have been slow to act and have taken a route of simply saying as little as possible. I am well aware of just how impotent we are, as MSPs, to stop this genocide. However, that should not mean that we fail to use every ounce of influence that we have to make it clear that these atrocities are not in our name.

I support the actions of the UK Government, as laid out in the Scottish Labour amendment. I want the UK Government to be robust in its approach, and I will continue to lobby it, as many in my party and others do, to urge it to do more.

A Palestinian state must be recognised without condition. In Scotland, we need to be assured that no public money is reaching arms parts that may reach Gaza, and the Scottish Government must continue to track that money. I welcome today’s statement from the First Minister.

We must use every opportunity to strive for peace, which can be hoped to be achieved only once Palestine has the same recognition that all sovereign states should have. Palestinians have the right to statehood and a life free from fear. However, at the moment, many simply need food and clean water. What does that say about humanity?

There is no war left to fight. Gaza has been destroyed, and the West Bank has once again been turned into an open-air prison. We have all seen the images of babies and mothers who are emaciated and on the brink of death. How much longer must that go on? History has its eyes on us. The conflict must end, and we must all play our part in ensuring that that happens now.

Thank you; it is helpful to know those things.

We have been advised that a small Government team is working on the plan. Is that enough, or will the team be built up? I am also interested to know whether there are good working relationships on this across the UK? The way in which food moves about is important and some of the legislation will also be cross-border, so I would like a wee bit of information about that if possible.

I thank the panel members for coming along. We look forward to your evidence. I will start quite generally and talk a wee bit about the plan overall. It is fair to say that it is ambitious but also that discussions have been on-going for many years. We need to move into the action stage; we have talked about it enough.

Can we achieve the outcomes and the vision that we have talked about over the past 10 years? I am particularly keen to know how we can get over the hurdle of cross-portfolio working—we have to do that with this plan. Do you have a view on how we can move it forward? With the size of the Scottish Government, what are the things that we need to do to ensure that it happens? Lindsay Jaacks seems to be nodding.

I have one more question, which is for Lindsay Jaacks and is about leadership. Should the leadership come from Government, which then has to pass that to other stakeholders to do the working-beyond-scope activity?