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I have been approached by people who, although they acknowledge that there has been some movement, consider that there is no great urgency to see the issue as a key priority. I have been asked to raise with the committee that having an islander on HIAL’s board should be a priority. Beatrice Wishart from Shetland has spoken to me about how the community there feels that it is imperative that that happens. I want to share that with the committee.

You spoke about the responsibility of local government to provide water for young people. I am interested to know to what extent that is monitored. Do we have any evidence that water is freely available and how well young people can access it?

Similarly, my point is that it is very disappointing that we do not have a timeframe. There is a growing body of evidence that that is an important policy to progress. Commitments have been made on school meals but nothing has come forward. We should send a strongly worded letter to the minister asking that the Government please sets out an exact timeframe for the measure.

Was that the initial contact with the police?

You talked about changes in the guidance. Do you know whether schools still give out disposable bottles or whether the provision is more sustainable now?

I am broadly supportive of the petition, and I have been approached by other members of the Parliament to suggest that we could seek further information on what happens within the school education system and how we could support proper education around what is often a sensitive issue for young people at school, particularly for young women. I would be keen to see whether we could get together some of the information and see how the issue is taken up in the school curriculum.

No, take your time.

The member may know that I attended the same event, which gave us some excellent food for thought about how we might move the economy forward and how we might encourage people and communities to be part of what we might describe as business, but which, through community wealth building, lets them be in charge of their own areas. Members will know that I am extremely positive about those ideas. The example was given of North Ayrshire Council leader Joe Cullinane. He has taken steps that I view as bold, but, in his view, he is just being fair about how we should run the economy for communities.

Where Emma Roddick and I disagree is that, in my view, leaving the UK is not the way to reduce income inequality. I suggest that delivering a Labour Government at Westminster—which would repeal anti-trade-union legislation, invest in services and communities and offer fairer jobs to people—would be a better way to achieve solidarity in how we run communities in the UK. Those jobs would be well-paid jobs in which workers, unlike under the current Scottish and UK Governments, would be treated with the respect that they deserve.

Indeed, before the cost of living crisis, the cost of living in more rural communities was already substantially higher than it was in their urban counterparts, yet the Scottish Government has continued to do little for those communities. Yesterday, Emma Roddick and Fergus Ewing highlighted that the Highlands have been deprived of transport links that they were promised in relation to connectivity around the A9.

I thank Emma Roddick for bringing the debate to the chamber, and I welcome her contribution. The idea that stood out in it and that has motivated me for my entire life is that we live in a poor society with some very rich people in it.

The wealth divide across the UK, including in Scotland, is absolutely shocking.

Emma Roddick is right to highlight the scale of income inequality in the UK relative to that in other countries in Europe. That has undoubtedly been exacerbated by the Tory-made cost of living crisis, which has made the poor poorer while multimillionaires record eye-watering profits. We cannot get away from that. There are eye-watering profits to be made and there is money in the system. We hear about that every day, and it is something that we must challenge. Wealth can and should be redistributed, and there are acknowledged fair, just and green ways to do that.

In my view, the Scottish Government has not shown the necessary determination. We have had delays in land reform, poor industrial relations with teachers and a lack of movement on regressive forms of taxation such as the council tax. We know that 20 families in Scotland own as much wealth as 30 per cent of the rest of the population, and that is unacceptable.

I do not believe that the Scottish Government has shown enough will. It has done things around the edges, and that is what we talk about in this Parliament. However, I hope that I can get some solidarity around the work that we need to do, to make sure that the Scottish Parliament does everything that it can. Emma Roddick and other members know that my point is that, if we believe that that gap is unjust, the Scottish Parliament must do everything that it can to fight for a better economic structure out there in the wider UK and world.