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Thank you, Presiding Officer. In Scotland, 863,000 people are on waiting lists. Scotland has the worst life expectancy rates across the UK and the worst in western Europe. Under the SNP Government, inequality has widened and our national health service is crumbling. The minister has to accept those points.

Staff are forced to deal with rising demand without sufficient planning or action from the Government to help. It is not just MSPs in the chamber who are saying that; respected professional bodies, such as the royal colleges and others in the medical profession, are saying it, too. In its briefing for today’s debate, the BMA says that there is no serious plan and that the Scottish Government is failing to provide a true picture of the stark reality of the challenges in recruiting and retaining senior doctors.

The latest Royal College of Nursing report, which has been mentioned, highlights the damning consequences of the lack of planning in relation to corridor care. It has become accepted in hospitals that that is how patients are cared for. Staff are caring for multiple patients in single corridors and are unable to access oxygen, cardiac monitors or other life-saving equipment. Nurses have reported feeling ashamed, demoralised and distraught that they cannot care for patients in the way in which they have been trained to do and in which patients deserve to be cared for. Frankly, it is shameful that things have got as bad as they have. It is undeniable that NHS staff and patients are bearing the brunt of the Government’s failure—the Government’s failure.

When the Government clearly lacks ambition and competence in workforce planning, how do we solve a workforce crisis that has cost the taxpayer more than £9 million in spending on temporary nurses, locum doctors and consultants? Scottish Labour has been telling the Government for years that ineffective planning has led hard-working staff to breaking point. Graduates cannot get jobs, and a lack of staff has meant that remote and rural communities continue to experience inequalities when accessing services. That is why the Parliament must support Scottish Labour’s motion.

The Government needs to develop a 10-year health and social care workforce plan that meets the needs of the people of Scotland. The people of Scotland are crying out for a new direction, and they deserve a lot better than what the SNP Government is delivering. I hope that members will support our motion to move things forward.

Cabinet secretary, I want to ask about ministerial powers. You may or may not be able to put anything on the record at this point, but I will give you an opportunity to do so. The bill contains 10 delegated powers provisions: nine regulation-making powers and one power to issue guidance. At this stage, does the Scottish Government have any comment about the scope of the regulation-making powers in the bill?

That is helpful. Thank you, convener.

That is fine. Is there anything about what will be in the bill that you can comment on, particularly about subordinate legislation?

I recognise the steps that the cabinet secretary has described today, and I welcome the cross-Government approach. Is the Government monitoring the approach that has been taken on pandemic preparedness in other countries, which will help to promote understanding and ensure that Scotland gathers the best evidence base for developing its own future response?

You have already touched on the issue of assisted suicide, but do you have any comment on Office for National Statistics research that found that a diagnosis or first treatment for certain conditions was associated with an elevated rate of death from suicide? I know that you have touched on that, and that the evidence varies, but I am giving you another opportunity to talk about the issue. Are there any safeguards in the bill when it comes to giving people the ability to know that assisted death might be available to them? How would you respond to that?

Thank you.

I say without hesitation that the WASPI women deserve compensation and that, where an injustice such as this has occurred, it is the job of Government to rectify it. I thought that many years ago, when the problem first arose, and I continue to think it now.

I value the work of the WASPI women in my region and across Scotland, and I thank them for their determination in the fight for compensation. I am glad that the UK Government has apologised for this injustice. I recognise that as an important step towards a resolution that reflects the scale of the damage done. However, that is simply not enough. As my colleagues have stated, we will continue to urge our party in Westminster to look again at the ombudsman’s report. I am pleased that we will vote for the Government's motion tonight.

When I have met the WASPI women, I have heard their stories and their fears about the serious impact that the process has had and will continue to have on their lives Their stories have moved us all, and it would not be right for me to hide from comments that I have made in the past. Therefore, I have chosen to speak in this debate, as I have done in previous debates on this subject in the Parliament.

Having spoken in the debate last week, I might be repeating some of the points that I made then, but I believe it is important to set the scene for this generation. It is impossible to argue that women born between 1950 and 1960 have not had to fight their whole lives for equality. Many of those women started their working lives at a time when workplaces were not structured to support or welcome them. Now, at the end of their working lives, they are told that their efforts have not been recognised in the way that they would have been for a man of the same age.

As other members have said, it is likely that those women started their careers prior to the Equal Pay Act 1970. That was a time when they would have had to leave work when they got married or had children. Those women have now been disadvantaged further through serious mismanagement by the state when communicating how they would receive their pension. The ombudsman determined that the DWP’s decision making between 2005 and 2007 led to a 28-month delay in its starting to send letters about state pension age changes to women who were born in the 1950s, and that those delays were maladministration and led to injustice.

Scottish Labour recognises that WASPI women will be disappointed that no compensation will be offered and that an apology from the Government is not enough.

The pension changes that were introduced by the Pensions Act 1995 and the Pensions Act 2011 were not only poorly communicated but handled with no respect for the women affected. Women who were just years away from retirement suddenly found that they had to work longer, which caused financial and emotional distress.

As we know, over 300,000 women in Scotland have been impacted by this scandal. We have a responsibility to those women, including, where possible, a responsibility to speak for them, and I hope that we can do so tonight.

The decision to bring forward the age change across the UK in the 2011 act brought financial and emotional distress to women across Scotland. Those affected have had to adapt rapidly and, in many cases, to completely change their plans for the future to make up for that financial loss in anticipating what their retirement will look like.

As the motion states, in March 2024, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman revealed the Tory Government’s failings and said that these women deserve compensation. Therefore, the refusal that we have seen thus far from the UK Government to provide any compensation is unacceptable, as we have heard from members across the chamber.

Without the ability to properly plan for their future, the emotional impact has taken a concerning toll on these women, as many have said in telling their stories. For some, that has become insurmountable. This situation has serious mental health implications, which the WASPI women have fought repeatedly to expose in their campaign. It has led to serious struggles for these women to afford the necessities of life while also experiencing anger and disappointment—quite rightly—in a system that does not seem to value their contribution and does not work for them.

Although appropriate, the acknowledgment and apology from the UK Government does not do enough for these women, who have been left short and turned away throughout their lives. It is important that the apology was made but, in the case of those most adversely affected, the lack of any compensation is ultimately life changing. We must recognise that.

We can all recognise the economic disaster that the UK Government has to deal with, but, given the decades-long fight that these women have had to wage in order to expose Government failings, an apology is not going to suffice in rectifying the situation.

In a country where the gender pension gap is sitting at 39 per cent, we need to do more to heal the deep wounds of the past. The current decision by the UK Government is simply not acceptable to WASPI women and their families, who have provided so much to our communities and to the wider economy.

From the Age Scotland briefing, we know that women are far less likely to feel confident about being comfortable in retirement. That is deeply worrying. Much more needs to be done, so I am pleased that my party will support the motion tonight. I hope that the motion will be supported across the Parliament and that we can work together to get these women the compensation that they deserve.

The Audit Scotland report that was published towards the end of last year states, in its findings, that the

“Government’s increased focus on drug harm through its National Mission programme is shifting the balance of attention from, and effort on, tackling alcohol harm.”

The Government has said that this is a twin public health emergency, and we accept that. However, sometimes the Government tends to set out a semi-complete list of disjointed actions relating to alcohol harm prevention. We need clearer actions and more urgency. Through its 2025-26 budget, is the Scottish Government considering ring fencing funding for improving access to alcohol treatment services?

I recognise that we have discussed that before in the chamber. I suppose that some of my frustration is about the urgency. We have a lot of the evidence, and we need to move on to delivery. Some of the initiatives that Brian Whittle mentioned about the delivery of training would be very helpful.

I want to mention apprenticeships and the opportunity to introduce tailored and flexible approaches to education and training. As I have said before in debates about the NHS, I strongly urge the Government to consider those opportunities and to move them forward, because I know that they have been discussed. Professional bodies want to engage with apprenticeships as they see the benefit for both patients and staff. Does the cabinet secretary have an update on that, with particular regard to allied health professionals? I met the British Dietetic Association, a professional organisation that is keen to support work on that, which understands the importance of having people in remote areas. Those sorts of initiatives would also create good quality jobs for people. The association absolutely sees the benefits of such initiatives, but the work on education needs to come together in order to make them happen.

In the interests of time, I will leave it there. I know that the cabinet secretary and his team understand the issues; it is about how we get some of the work over the line. I thank members for their contributions to the debate.