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I want to understand the power imbalance that some people live through in their life. People often live in poor housing, have precarious work or have caring responsibilities, and we know that there is a high level of health problems in our population. As a politician, I really need to understand my responsibility, and not just the individual’s responsibility, in changing this food environment.

Is there more work to be done to move away from it being the individual’s responsibility to fix the problem and towards politicians and Government taking responsibility? Do we need a wee bit more of that in the plan and perhaps education for some of us as politicians about how we do that?

Thank you convener, and thanks to the panel for being here. We had a robust session, so it is great to have you here to build on that.

It has taken us a while to get here, and you probably would acknowledge that, so my question is: what is the next stage? Do we have a plan so that action can happen? I am particularly interested—as I often am in the Parliament—in how we get cross-Government working, which can then feed down right across all the different sectors.

My colleagues will go on to discuss some of this, so I will not focus too much on it, but if there was one message to give to Government on cross-portfolio working, what would it be? Do people in the Government just need to talk more, or do we need an action plan? What advice would you give us? We talk about cross-portfolio working so much, but just getting it in place seems quite difficult at times.

I want to understand the power imbalance that some people live through in their life. People often live in poor housing, have precarious work or have caring responsibilities, and we know that there is a high level of health problems in our population. As a politician, I really need to understand my responsibility, and not just the individual’s responsibility, in changing this food environment.

Is there more work to be done to move away from it being the individual’s responsibility to fix the problem and towards politicians and Government taking responsibility? Do we need a wee bit more of that in the plan and perhaps education for some of us as politicians about how we do that?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app seemed to do something funny—I do apologise. I would have voted no.

I thank Alex Rowley for bringing forward this important debate. His contribution showed us how the situation feels for our constituents out there today.

Dentistry needs to be viewed as part of the prevention agenda in health in Scotland, and access to timely and routine dental care is crucial to achieving that goal.

An issue that I want to raise at this point, and which should be important to us in the chamber, is the persistent and widening oral health inequalities that we have in Scotland, with the most deprived communities experiencing significantly worse outcomes than our more affluent ones. Equal access must be part of our plan, because good oral health helps to prevent systemic health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory infections and problems, diabetes and pregnancy complications. It is integral to our overall health and wellbeing. Sometimes we forget that, but if we want to close that gap, dentistry must be seen as playing a part in health outcomes and health inequalities.

It is critical that people have access to an NHS dentist—that is the key. Today’s debate has highlighted that access is a problem for our constituents. They are not receiving regular check-ups and, as we have heard, there is consensus across Scotland that it is becoming harder and harder to register with and access an NHS dentist. In the current system, patients are unable to access NHS care. Dentists are in short supply, which means that practices have vacancies that go on and on, and they cannot fill them. There are fewer dentists who are willing to treat our NHS patients. Alex Rowley gave an example of how we are pushing people to the private sector.

Those challenges are well known and of long standing. Alex Rowley spoke about some of the initiatives that the Government has put in place, but, as others have said, we need to do more. Even those within the profession have argued that the model of dentistry is not fit for purpose and that it fails patients.

I will consider some data from my region of South Scotland on registrations and contact with dentists. In Dumfries and Galloway, only 65 per cent of the population is registered with an NHS dentist. Dumfries and Galloway is an example of a dental desert, and the issue of the recruitment of dentists plays a huge part in that. In Ayrshire, a dental practice in Mauchline—my home village—reported having an NHS patient waiting list of 1,000 people.

To return to the point about inequalities, some people are lucky enough to be registered with an NHS dentist, but there are significant numbers of people who cannot register, which leads to more and more inequality.

In Ayrshire and Arran, less than 60 per cent of registered patients living in the most-deprived areas had contact with an NHS dentist in the past two years. That compares with 73 per cent or more of patients living in some of the least-deprived areas.

I hope that today’s debate highlights that we need to fix the crisis. The Government’s approach has been piecemeal. We appreciate the actions that it has taken, but there needs to be leadership to ensure that a two-tier system does not exist in dentistry and that we can move forward.

I support the motion and I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate.

In NHS Ayrshire and Arran, more than 11,000 patients were stuck waiting more than a year for an out-patient appointment. Those waits have consequences for patients and for our highly professional and hard-working staff. The reworked plans that you constantly set out are not working. We need some honesty from this Government.

What can you say to those thousands of patients, and to the staff in NHS Ayrshire and Arran, about what action you will take to stop them waiting in limbo?

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?