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We all know that the benefits of active travel are wide ranging, from its environmental benefits to those for the health and wellbeing of the population. We should place significant focus on encouraging and facilitating active travel, which is why I reiterate that the Scottish Labour’s amendment calls for 10 per cent of the transport budget to be allocated to it.

We do not make that request without reason. Today’s debate has recognised the progress that we have made, but we must focus on what more there is still to do. Isolation, poor housing, health inequalities and poor transport links impact the poorest and most vulnerable in our society more than anyone else. It is therefore crucial that any active travel plan has the livelihood and opportunities of those in our most-deprived areas at its core.

Yes, we can welcome investments in e-bikes, cycling and walking paths, and more. However, those investments do little to improve the health outcomes for those who are most in need if we do not bring them closer to our communities and make it as feasible as possible for people to use active travel routes.

Equitable access to active travel is a factor in tackling health inequalities, which must be a priority for Parliament. We know that health inequalities create some of the biggest challenges that Scottish society faces. As my colleague Neil Bibby mentioned, for active travel to become a successful reality, it is crucial that the Scottish Government improves its performance in two areas where it has failed recently.

First, the SNP must stop cutting local government services. With political will and pressure from SNP back benchers, the Government could create high-quality, well-funded, accessible and affordable services, including active travel services, up and down the country. To cut the budgets of councils—thus cutting their ability to provide solid travel infrastructure—and then come to the chamber today with a self-congratulatory motion should shame SNP and Green MSPs, who stood on a manifesto of investment but have presided over horrific cuts to the services on which our communities rely.

Further, cutting train services and increasing the costs of train travel amid a cost-of-living crisis puts a strain on the pockets of millions and will not encourage people to choose active travel. It is vital that more people choose to walk, cycle or use public transport instead of a car, for the sake of future generations and our planet. However, we must make that choice a clear and easy one to make. The Scottish Government has failed in that regard.

Active travel is a worthwhile cause to pursue, so I am glad that we are having this debate. I had the privilege of joining Paths for All at Kilmarnock train station in my constituency. I walked through one of the newly installed active travel routes there, and it was clear to me how beneficial those routes could be if they were rolled out properly and more widely.

However, we have to get the basics right. We have to take a gendered approach to those routes, to ensure that they are accessible to women and that women feel safe on them, and they must be accessible to other vulnerable groups, such as the young, the elderly and the disabled. We have to invest in rail and bus services to keep them frequent and close to communities, with low fares. We have to ensure that active travel routes serve those whom health inequalities impact the most.

In doing so, we will take steps towards improving the health and lifestyle outcomes of those who have been worst impacted by the cuts of the Scottish and UK Governments in recent years, and we will give the active travel plan for Scotland the best chance of being successful. Therefore, I urge colleagues to back the Scottish Labour amendment this evening.

To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the number of low-income households that will not be eligible for the £150 payment to help tackle the rising cost of living. (S6O-00876)

A new study from Energy Action Scotland has revealed that as many as 211,000 additional people in Scotland—a 43 per cent rise from 2019—are set to fall victim to fuel poverty this year. Almost all of them are in households that already have low incomes. Is it correct that the system that is proposed by the Scottish Government, which distributes the payment via council tax banding, will spread support too thinly, and that low-income households, who, proportionately, will suffer more as a result, will not receive the targeted support that they need?

There will be no overnight fix but I ask that we continue with this important work. Thank you, Presiding Officer

I thank everyone who has spoken so far in this necessary debate for their contributions. I would like to focus on the problems that are evident in our prisons. When we talk about problems with substance misuse, we are really talking about people who have, for one reason or another, slipped through the net. In so many cases, they will encounter some form of the justice system along that path.

Fortunately, we now seem to be at the point at which the majority recognises that simply locking up someone with a serious addiction will not make that problem go away. Evidence shows that prison stays only exacerbate existing substance misuse problems, leaving a legacy of addiction and distress.

Whether prisons can be reformed to prevent that and provide the opportunity for more sustainable rehabilitation is perhaps a wider debate, but it is one that we dearly need to have. We will not be able to get through all that today, but we can say that the current model is not working.

Where there should be adequate support to get drug users back on their feet, there is far too often still more of a focus on abstinence and a lack of effective intervention to look at a person’s misuse from a long-term perspective.

Above all, the most significant barrier to any progress is the massive overcrowding within our prison system. The incredibly hard-working healthcare staff who work in prisons are already facing unimaginable pressures and, on top of that, they must manage time constraints that in any ordinary circumstances would be deemed to be completely unacceptable. There are so few of them, and so many people who need help.

As always, just like a vast number of the problems that we speak about in the chamber, we expect exceptional results, but we seem to be unwilling to fund them.

If we insist on sending so many people there, it is time that we viewed prison as a unique opportunity to address many of the health inequalities that blight the worst off in our society. However, because of the same pressures on the entire NHS, with the added problems of working in a fractious and poorly managed environment, that will always be difficult to achieve for staff who feel like they are not being supported. In order to give them that support, we need to be honest with the public that, if we are to tackle the drug problem in this country and make our justice system more effective, we will require greater investment and a much longer-term approach, which are two things that the world of politics is often poorly prepared to deal with.

If we continue to address each problem individually, it will take a great deal of time to make any headway. However, as members will expect, my position is a socialist one of understanding that the root of all these problems is socioeconomic inequality that has gone on for generations and will continue for generations to come if more is not done. If we do not seriously tackle the low-pay, high-debt, exorbitant-housing-cost society that we have built, reliance on substances to deal with the pressure will only get worse. The minute that someone is made homeless or put on the cusp of homelessness through losing a job or unaffordable rents, their mental and physical health will rapidly deteriorate and the likelihood that they will look to substances to alleviate that pressure will increase. Those are largely the people who end up in our prisons. I ask again, why are we not dealing with this problem at the source?

Scottish Labour believes that we must begin to look at the several decades in which drug misuse has spiralled out of control in Scotland, and we have come to the conclusion that that should be a top priority for every Government, not just here in Edinburgh, but also in London, and it needs to remain a priority for a long time to come.

Dr Marshall made an excellent point when he talked about how people’s access to money is linked to health.

My question is on allied health professionals. The evidence that we have heard today and on other days makes it clear that they can help in terms of inequalities in health. Do we have enough information about which AHPs are in primary care settings and whether there is a weighting towards areas that might need more of that support? Is more work needed on that?

Yes—I will do so very quickly as I know that we are tight for time.

Is there somewhere to which you could direct the committee where we could ask for that work to be done? Would it be NES? Where could we get that work progressed?

That is lovely. Thanks very much.

The Covid-19 pandemic has been difficult for everyone. Up and down the country, isolation and loss have been felt by so many. However, as a result of the strength of families who have been affected, we know in particular about the impact that has been felt by those in our adult care homes. Isolated for so long, disconnected from their families and unable to have the human connection they need, those in our adult care homes have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.

Despite what the previous speaker said in her contribution, the reality is that families feel that this Government has not been providing them with enough support. Families in my region of South Scotland, like others across the country, have had to go to their loved ones’ windows for a chat; some have watched their condition deteriorate without being able to sit next to them; and others have lost loved ones without even being able to say a final goodbye. Those are serious matters. It is one of the most heartbreaking stories of the pandemic; we must address it now and never allow it to happen again.

Care homes have been repeatedly closed to visitors during the pandemic; they have often been the first premises to close and the last to reopen. Of course we know how important it is to protect the most vulnerable in a care home setting, but we also know how important it is to strengthen their rights while they are in that setting.

It is therefore crucial that Anne’s law is introduced to Parliament, as Scottish Labour has called for. As we have heard, Anne’s law would ensure that relatives of residents are recognised as care givers—that is a key point—thus giving residents of care homes the right to be visited by those who matter most to them. That would ensure that they have the contact of which far too many in Scotland’s care homes have been deprived. The situation has simply gone on for far too long. Measures could be introduced to ensure that relevant infection control guidance is followed and that residents’ physical safety is protected. Although the Scottish Government has committed to introducing Anne’s law, that must be done with purpose, and promptly, because care home residents and their families are still being failed.

Even now, a positive test in a care home for a resident leads to a 10-day self-isolation period while the rules for everyone else have been relaxed. We know only too well the negative impacts that prolonged isolation can have on an individual’s mental wellbeing.

Families such as Anne Duke’s are calling for urgent action, and it is crucial that the First Minister and the health secretary listen and deliver it. To not act now is to keep families waiting, inflict more difficulty on residents and their loved ones and exacerbate an issue that has already impacted thousands of Scots. Families will not stand for it, and neither will Scottish Labour.

In conclusion, I once again pay tribute to those who work in our care homes, the residents and their families. The challenges placed in front of them throughout the pandemic have been significant and hard to overcome, but they persist, and they fight for change that will benefit the lives of residents in our adult care homes across the country.

Our fight for Anne’s law will continue because we know the impact that interaction with loved ones has on each and every one of us, and we will not stop until the Scottish Government acts. My message to the Scottish Government and all members is that we must act now in the interests of some of the most vulnerable members of our society. I therefore urge all members—I am looking to members on the Government’s back benches—to act now. Step up and support those families. Support Labour’s motion at decision time.

I am glad that my party has brought the debate to the chamber. It is the right thing to do, and passing the law would, equally, be the right thing to do. That is why I am sure that we can all agree that Milly’s law is a reform that the whole Parliament can get behind without hesitation.

For far too long, individuals and families across Scotland have felt—rightly—that the system simply does not work for them. When a loved one has fallen victim to a serious failing that has led to loss of life, people are left picking up the pieces, with little support or understanding.

The point of Milly’s law is to ensure that bereaved families have the right to be at the heart of how organisations and institutions respond to such scandals and to ensure that they are not simply an audience to be spoken to. Far too many families have found themselves in that situation, when they feel that they are being lectured to and left out in the cold. That should not be happening. To ensure that it does not happen, we should give bereaved families the right to accessible legal advice and representation, so that they can participate fully in all public inquiries. That is the only way in which we can lift the lid off those tragedies—by exposing them to the light and putting those who are affected in the driving seat.

I am afraid that in this country, as in many others, there is a culture of self-preservation and sweeping difficult questions under the carpet. We all saw the scandal at the Queen Elizabeth university hospital, and we cannot let that happen again.

The reality is that relatives often do not have the time, the experience or the strength left to fight those clear injustices, but we cannot let that deter us from the truth. Families need to be given the right to have a powerful public champion to pursue their cause—someone who is independent and can act on their behalf. Milly’s law would ensure that they have that right.

On top of that, as we learned so harshly following the Hillsborough disaster and during the decades since then, it is absolutely necessary to establish a charter for families who are bereaved through public tragedy that is binding on all public bodies. That would give people a foundation, and the confidence, to fight back, often against overwhelming odds.

The impetus for Milly’s law came in response to a horrendous tragedy which, despite the numerous debates in this Parliament and the significant efforts of a number of my party colleagues, has not received the level of attention that it should rightly have received across the whole United Kingdom, not just Scotland. That is partly because we allow institutions too much power to control the narrative. To put it simply, the power must be taken away and put in the hands of those who are affected by loss. We find ourselves in this situation because organisations are not honest with themselves or with those whom their actions affect. There must be a duty of candour to bereaved families who seek the truth, rather than—as I mentioned earlier—a tendency to sweep things under the carpet.

I truly believe that the Queen Elizabeth university hospital scandal should be cause for serious concern far beyond Scotland, and Milly’s law can set an example that many others can follow. Never again should we omit evidence and findings from major public inquiries at subsequent criminal trials, and never again should we let families struggle for scraps of truth, so that they rely on a stroke of luck or a mistake. That is not fair, it is not just and—I repeat—it is not right.

I truly hope that the Parliament will fully support the passing of the law. We can make a significant difference by doing so and, after all, is that not why we are all here—to serve?