Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am pleased to open the debate for Scottish Labour.

We welcome the committee’s report into the health and wellbeing of children and young people. That is an overlooked and important subject that requires much greater attention, especially as a cost of living crisis looks set to grasp hold of many families for months, and possibly years, to come. Let us hope that that does not continue for years—but let us hope that, in the Parliament, we all commit to taking the necessary action to ensure that, if it does, it does not affect our young people. We must do that in every way that we can.

The evidence is overwhelming. It is not just that there are too many children living in poverty in Scotland—even one is too many—but that as many as one in four children is living in poverty. I will say that again: one in four children in this country lives in poverty.

In a great number of cases, those children are not living in homes where no one works, although the right-wing media would like to paint that picture sometimes. Those children are often from working families that simply cannot put food on the table. There are many factors as to why that is the case. Above all, for me, it is a matter of people being underpaid and abandoned to insecure work that simply does not provide enough to raise a family on. If we change that, the mental and physical health of young people across Scotland will begin to improve, year on year.

Naturally, young people cannot wait for all Governments to get their act together, so we must reflect on the marked effects that deprivation has on mental health as well as on physical health right now, and we must do all that we can to prevent inequality and ensure that prevention strategies are properly funded so that our young people’s health is protected right now.

The committee recognised that we must look at CAMHS. At the end of March 2022, more than 10,000 children and young people were waiting for CAMHS treatment. I know that this is said every week to the minister in this chamber, but it appears not to be being heard: these figures are unacceptable and clearly demonstrate the SNP’s long-term inability to improve mental health services. For eight years, the First Minister has followed the same script about her Government’s priorities with regard to young people, but young people need action, not rhetoric.

That includes, as the report highlights, dealing with the limited capacity in our mental health workforce. We clearly cannot wait for the SNP Government’s workforce plan to bear fruit. We have to train and employ a generation of new mental health workers on good wages who can commit their working lives to helping to tackle this problem. Scottish Labour is calling for real investment in mental health services to bring down waiting lists and put specialists in every GP practice, and I reiterate that call today. The Scottish Government must prioritise the issue and do more.

We Labour members recognise that many young people have unpaid caring responsibilities, as the report mentions. Despite that, there is no real strategy in Scotland for unpaid carers—particularly young carers. We heard a lot of evidence about that. Those young carers desperately need the restoration and expansion of respite services, with entitlements to short breaks and wellbeing services as standard. They are entitled to those things and we should press to ensure that they are available across the country.

It has been raised with me that we must also continue to analyse and report on the impact of Covid-19—particularly the impact of long Covid on the health and wellbeing of children and young people—and consider what challenges that is already creating and will create in the future, ensuring that that influences any policies that we implement.

All those reforms will help us to focus on prevention and early intervention in the immediate term, while wider economic change is, I believe, inevitable and essential. The cost of living crisis is rapidly exposing how thin our safety net is, and, in my opinion, the entire concept of employment and the ways in which the state protects and assists its most vulnerable people need to be revisited to create something that is fit for the 21st century.

There is no reason why a wealthy and prosperous country such as ours should even have to worry about this problem; it should be the first order of every day in every Parliament across this country. However, under successive Governments of all stripes, not enough has been done. That has to stop. We all have to do more.

I am sure that I speak for my party and many people in the Parliament and around the country when I say that the current state of provision is well below what is acceptable and we will not continue to put up with it.

The member knows that we, on these benches, have called for a number of measures. However, when we debate these issues, I would like the Government and back-bench members to come forward with plans that we can implement now. They often tell us that change takes a long time, so let us use what we have here and now to do everything that we can to ensure that children and young people do not live in poverty.

The last Labour Government went some way towards reducing child poverty, but our understanding and methods to combat it have moved on since then, so we will not rest. That is why Scottish Labour’s focused plan has, at its heart, a child poverty commission that will develop real plans to tackle child poverty—we hope—once and for all.

As I said at the start of the debate, if we want to alter the trajectory of young people’s health and wellbeing over the long term, the only solution is sustained investment in services. The Scottish Government must do more to commit to mental health services, in particular. We must look at employing more qualified staff on good salaries. Again, the Scottish Government must do more on that than it has done so far. Above all, we must wipe away that low-pay, insecure world of work that so many families barely earn a living from. All Governments must do more in that regard.

The Scottish Government’s women’s health plan accepts that women from higher socioeconomic areas are more likely to take up cervical screening than those from the more deprived areas. Given that we know that a clear way of bringing screening closer to home is by rolling out self sampling, can the minister outline any progress that has been made in that regard and say what role self sampling will play in the cervical screening programme in years to come, if the women’s health plan target of reaching more people who might not ordinarily engage is to be met?

I thank my colleagues from the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee for their work on the report, and I look forward to ensuring that the actions that are recommended in it are delivered.

Many points have been well made today, and a lot of my questions have been answered. I take the points about lobbying and ensuring that we get the system change across the UK that is desperately needed. In the meantime, what can we in the Scottish Parliament do in terms of our responsibilities? It has been suggested that we can maximise the benefits that are available to us here, and that we can look at making system change in Scotland. I am interested to hear from witnesses about carers in particular. We want people to know that they are entitled to benefits, healthcare and access the systems that are in place. How can we best do that with the powers that we have?

Do the witnesses have any thoughts on how we can ensure that the system understands that people are entitled to that healthcare?

That is lovely. Thank you.

The intimidating behaviour witnessed outside the Sandyford clinic in Glasgow appears to be escalating. On 12 May, the First Minister offered support to councils that would introduce bylaws to establish buffer zones at abortion clinics. On 13 May, after asking what Glasgow City Council could do in that regard to address the escalating issues, I was told to direct my inquiries to the relevant ministerial working group.

It appears that local and national Government are at an impasse. I am aware that long-term planning is under way, but we need solutions in the short term to protect these women. If the Scottish Government believes that this is the only publicly available legal option—and it is only an option—will it reiterate in writing its offer of support to councils and will it do so before the summit later this summer?

I, too, thank Rhoda Grant for bringing this important motion to the chamber. I echo the points that she has made on the difficulties of recruitment in rural areas, including her area of NHS Highland. Recruitment is a major concern across the NHS, but that concern is definitely heightened in rural areas.

As Rhoda Grant has said, the RCN advised us before the debate that in NHS Highland 224 registered nurse posts—nearly one in 10—are vacant. That situation is reflected in other rural areas. It is a significant cause for concern that the Government ought to take very seriously and act upon.

NHS staff recruitment and retention is an on-going issue that has been debated many times in the chamber and raised repeatedly by nursing trade unions. As I say regularly in the chamber, the Scottish Government cannot take the time to pat itself on the back while vacancies remain high across the country, staff remain under pressure and services continue to be strained.

The Government must consider carefully the ways in which recruitment can be improved, and that must include the training of NHS staff close to home. As someone who covers a rural constituency, I hear time and time again many of the points that were made by Rhoda Grant earlier in the debate. We have first-class university and college facilities across Scotland, and it is important that training programmes are rolled out in our rural areas such as the Highlands and my area of the Borders to ensure that people who wish to enter the healthcare profession can train and then—we hope—take up posts close to home.

Moreover, in our efforts to ensure that care is community based and available locally, we must recruit more people in key areas such as mental health and learning disabilities, as was referenced in the RCN’s briefing, to ensure that such services have the staff to meet demand and can be delivered close to the people who rely on them. That helps patients and staff, both of whom can benefit from having facilities close to home. That is so important in rural areas.

As we know—and as has been mentioned by members across the chamber—recruitment and retention are closely linked. Just last month, at First Minister’s question time, I highlighted discussions with the Unison trade union on how workplace pressures in NHS Borders had led staff to report to the union issues such as staffing levels that are dangerous for both patients and staff and staff not receiving proper rest breaks.

That situation is unacceptable. I know that the Government has acknowledged that and that it says that it will address the issue, but we on the Labour benches have to keep pushing to ensure that the safe staffing legislation is enacted and that the Government takes the issue seriously. Those points have previously been made in the chamber, and we must now start to enact some of that work.

The healthcare workforce gives so much to the community and to our country, but it often feels that it gets so little back. Is it any wonder, therefore, that vacancies remain so high and that staff feel under so much pressure? If we want to recruit and retain a skilled workforce that serves every part of our country, including rural areas, we must start by alleviating some of the barriers to the recruitment of students and addressing the workplace pressures that staff currently face in order to make the healthcare setting an appealing one in which to work.

As Rhoda Grant’s motion makes clear, the Highlands have seen the removal of a key training programme from a local university to the large city of Edinburgh. It is also clear from today’s contributions—and, indeed, from trade unions and NHS workforce briefings—that current workforce pressures are significant and put strain on the ability to deliver the service that patients deserve.

Those two clear issues that are highlighted in the motion and which relate to recruitment and retention can be fixed by bringing training programmes closer to home. For rural areas, that would mean having valued NHS staff close to home who could provide those services. It is a significant point that the cabinet secretary should follow up.

Either—I am interested in how they feel that the approach is working at a local level and at a national level.