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I thank Tess White for bringing this important issue to the chamber. I, too, welcome it being Scottish women and girls in sport week.

I understand that many people feel strongly about the topic, which is why it requires the attention of Parliament and should come to the chamber floor for debate. In my speech, I want to try as much as I can to show that I believe in a sports provision that is fair, safe and allows everyone to have an opportunity to compete and enjoy a whole variety of sports. I also want to describe my constituents’ views as far as I can.

I am contacted regularly about the issue by constituents and people outside my South Scotland region who are on both sides of the debate. Primarily, the feedback that I receive is that a great number of women feel that their voices are not being heard when it comes to sport and the inclusion of women in sport. I think that we can all agree that that is not acceptable. We have to hear those voices, and it is our responsibility in the chamber to ensure that that happens.

I do not profess to have all the answers, but I can say with certainty that there is a need for more research and for individual sports to be allowed more time to make decisions on how we discuss the matter and make progress. We cannot rush into altering the fundamentals of competition without carrying out due diligence. Millions of people take sporting competition very seriously, either actively or as spectators, and it would be remiss of the Parliament to simply dismiss women’s concerns about transgender people’s engagement in sport. We have to take time to listen and to learn.

We all surely agree that sport must be safe and as fair as possible. That is what we teach children from a very young age, and it is the spirit of, for example, the Commonwealth games, which will be coming back to Scotland in a couple of years. Transparency and a logical approach to fairness and harm avoidance are required.

As others have mentioned, the Equality Act 2010 includes an exemption that allows us to act in relation to sport. Sports leaders have also made comments that have been referenced by members. The performance director of British Cycling has said that this could be

“the single biggest issue for Olympic sport.”

In athletics, Seb Coe has said that the issue is making women’s sport “very fragile”. It is therefore very important that we make progress.

When I speak to constituents, overall, they accept that there are some cases in which someone who has transitioned could compete alongside others of their gender, but we should be clear about what that should look like. When it comes to high-impact sports and ones that feature frequent contact, there are legitimate concerns about long-term health effects and a blanket approach being taken. As we have heard, in sport, someone who has experienced puberty as a male has a significant natural advantage, so much more consideration has to be given to those cases.

Let us not forget that it took many decades to get the public to take women’s sport, including women’s athletics, seriously. We owe a debt to the women who built those foundations, so we should be serious when making decisions about what we do.

As I said, I do not pretend to have the answers, but, as parliamentarians, we must listen to the experts and be open minded when concerns are raised. We cannot have a knee-jerk reaction. It is not good enough to make political points. I hope that, by our speaking up today, some people out there will understand that parliamentarians are listening and that we can take action on the issue.

I, too, thank Rona Mackay for her commitment to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and for bringing this important debate to the chamber to mark international FASD awareness month. As others have said, it is vital that the Parliament has an opportunity to talk about the issue, raise awareness and call for continued action to support interventions. As parliamentarians, we have a responsibility to look at how we reduce the prevalence and impact of FASD in Scotland and support those who live with it.

As we have heard, it has been estimated that about 3.2 per cent of Scotland’s young people live with FASD. That figure is stark when we consider that, as the motion states, it is the most common preventable neurodevelopmental condition in Scotland. The evidence from the University of Glasgow, which members have mentioned, suggests that the prevalence could be higher than we previously thought, with about 42 per cent of babies having been exposed to alcohol in pregnancy and 15 per cent showing signs of exposure to high and frequent consumption.

As has been stated, FASD is preventable, and the UK chief medical officers have made it clear that alcohol and pregnancy do not mix. They recommend that the safest approach for people who are pregnant or are planning a pregnancy is not to drink alcohol at all. That will keep the risks to the baby to a minimum. Drinking alcohol at any stage of pregnancy risks the development of a neurodevelopmental disorder, and it is important that people understand that.

However, I want to make two points in that regard. First, more than a quarter of women in the United Kingdom are unaware of that advice not to drink alcohol. Secondly, it is estimated that 45 per cent of pregnancies in the UK are unplanned. What do we do about that? How do we make sure that that information is available to young women who are planning a pregnancy and to those who do not know that they are pregnant?

Clearly, there is an important piece of work to be done to ensure that the messaging is clear for women throughout their life, so that they get that information. We have a responsibility to make sure that our pre-conception strategy is such that people get that information.

Another important point is that binge drinking—consuming lots of alcohol in a short period of time—is thought to bring a particular risk of FASD. We know that, in Scotland, there is an element of binge drinking among women. We in the Parliament must use the opportunity of this debate to talk about the wider approach to an alcohol strategy for Scotland that seeks to change our problematic relationship with alcohol.

Alcohol policy needs to be a range of measures, formulated and implemented by the Government and other public bodies, that are designed to prevent, improve or treat the health and social problems that are associated with problematic alcohol use. Given past commitments from the Government and the minister, I hope that, in her response to the debate, she will discuss the public health measures on which we might be able to improve and move forward, and the pace at which we might do that.

As I draw my remarks to a close, I thank all colleagues for the discussion. We must seek to get the best support for those who live with FASD, and we must seek to improve diagnosis and support. However, prevention is key and, in Scotland, we know that we need to move forward with that. I thank all my colleagues for contributing.

You have mentioned the missing millions campaign. Is there any sense that the Government is picking up on the notion that we should seek to remove the private sector from the provision of service? Has there been any engagement on that at all?

Despite the discussion about whether the bill should progress, we still have to scrutinise amendments, as they stand.

One question that I am interested in is whether you think that the bill would, with amendments, give us a robust way of monitoring improvements in social care and make sure that we can look at performance in social care and outcomes for clients. Would the amendments, as they stand, allow us to do that, if the legislation was in place?

I have listened closely to what the witnesses have said that we can and should do now. However, part of the committee’s responsibility is to scrutinise the bill as it progresses. I am interested in monitoring. The papers mention performance, but having listened to the witnesses, I think that we are talking about whether the bill and the amendments address the outcomes that we wish to achieve for the people that we seek to represent and support. Pauline Lunn, in particular, expressed strong feelings on that. Will you talk to us a wee bit about the bill and the amendments as they stand? Can we monitor the processes and get the outcomes that we are looking for? Can we get that right? Can we hold people to account for that?

Am I picking up rightly that monitoring seems to be based on process, but that what is really important in is quality both for the individual for whom we provide the service and for their family?

Am I right in picking up—

I just want to pick up the point about the social care workforce being seen as very professional, which is something that I think that we can all agree on. There are two questions to ask in that respect. There is a sense that we are very slow in getting justice for that workforce. Particularly with regard to sectoral and collective bargaining, should we be looking at whether we need to do things now, as well as trying to make robust advances with regard to what would be in the bill? Can we do things now on fair work and bargaining?

No—that is fine. Thank you.

With regard to our being able to robustly monitor and put forward improvements that would work for people and staff members, you are saying that we would need to make sure that more funding was available—that even if what we had to do was clear in writing, it would not be doable if we do not have the resources to implement it.