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I thank Daniel Johnson for bringing this important debate to the chamber. Working with other members across parties, Daniel Johnson has been a real champion in the Parliament for people with autism, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions.

The report adds to the growing body of evidence that change is needed to our approach to assessment, diagnosis and support for neurodivergence in Scotland. Members might be aware that, earlier this year, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee conducted an inquiry that gave people and families who have experienced neurodevelopmental services the opportunity to share those experiences and recommend changes to ensure that we can better serve our neurodiverse constituents. I look forward to the report being published. It was an important inquiry and many lessons were learned, so I hope that the report will reflect that and will be useful in adding to other on-going work in the area.

The royal college report rightly points out that, despite the dramatic rise in need, Scotland still lacks a dedicated and standardised pathway. It goes on to say that, in the absence of appropriate services, individuals are being referred into general adult mental health pathways, not because they have a mental illness but because there is no suitable alternative. The report points out that those services have never been designed to assess or support people with those conditions and they have just become a catch-all for those referrals.

That structural mismatch is now overwhelming the system. Waiting lists have grown to unmanageable levels. It is therefore important that issue is addressed.

I think that members will recognise what the report is saying, and I want to raise the voices of my constituents, because the frustration of people and families cannot be overstated.

Over the four years that I have been in Parliament—I have said this before—the most frequent requests that I have got in casework have often been very simple. Constituents ask, “Please can you help me understand?”, whether it is to do with waiting lists or service provision for people with autism, ADHD or neurodivergence. They ask, “Can you help me?” with primary school or secondary school, or as children move between primary, secondary and further education, when families often find themselves in conflict.

I thank the member for that important intervention; I have had that issue raised with me in casework.

I believe that colleagues in the chamber have heard very similar requests from constituents. More recently, I have heard about the use of the private sector for assessment, which can be incredibly stressful, as other members have mentioned. Many children—and, as we now know, adults—are seeking private assessment after having made many attempts to get an assessment through the national health service. The long NHS waiting lists and the lack of service mean that exhausted families are often using much of their own money and resources to get a diagnosis. That is very stressful, and even after they do that, there is no clear pathway for them.

Many of us in the chamber have heard about how poorly co-ordinated shared care is. That has been mentioned today, so I will not go over it again. However, I note that families are often rejected not just for medication, but by GPs and CAMH services. A constituent raised with me a similar situation in our education system. Parents seek a diagnosis, and then, within the education system, children are denied community services such as occupational therapy or speech and language therapy because their private diagnosis does not link in with the school’s way of recording and reporting, and supporting people.

Parents report to me that they feel that public services—health services, social care, education and criminal justice—lack a basic understanding on the front line. That is an important point, and I will finish on it. The resources are often there, at what has been described to me as quite a high level, but the question is how we enable the front-line teams to pick up on the issues.

I would have liked to say more, Deputy Presiding Officer, but I appreciate the time.

That is absolutely beyond belief, and I suppose that it does not come to us until we hear it in black and white. Was there any evidence on how Police Scotland or other organisations hope to combat the issue?

No, it was a very welcome intervention. Many families talk about supporting their loved ones, about them becoming settled in their preschool and then needing to move, and about having to go through the transition again, so it is so important that we address that issue. There is much more to say, as others have mentioned.

I hope that the Government places an emphasis on this issue and that it is committed to tackling the barriers for young BSL users and their wider families. This is a really important piece of work, so I look forward to a cross-party response to the committee’s work, which Kate Forbes spoke about.

Does the member agree that, although that obviously affects individual BSL users, parents and family members also find it stressful that their loved one does not have the ability to communicate in their own language outwith the home?

I thank the First Minister for his words on the matter. In Scotland, there is no framework, consistent referral pathway or single approach to the care of children with dementia. Sadly, 50 per cent of children with dementia die by the age of 10. Does the Scottish Government recognise that it is an urgent issue? Will it provide an official response to Alzheimer Scotland’s recently published report on childhood dementia?

In parts of my South Scotland region, a lack of overnight beds in neonatal wards could result in parents facing a 100-mile round trip to see their baby. I understand that the recently announced maternity and neonatal task force will review rural service provision. Will the minister ensure that consideration will be given to supporting families in rural areas who have babies in neonatal wards?

I thank the committee for allowing me to say a few words.

I fully support the petition, convener, and I want to reiterate what you and Tess White have said about the police decision. It is very welcome.

However, I believe that the committee could look at some relatively simple and straightforward issues in order to complete all this work, and I therefore urge it to write to the Crown Office, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Prison Service to seek similar assurances to those from Police Scotland that we have heard about today. That would complete what we are trying to do in accurately collecting this data, which is essential to maintaining public trust, to monitoring and to research and public policy in this area.

To ask the Scottish Government what measures it will take in its budget to support high street retailers in the South Scotland region that are at risk of closing. (S6O-05271)

In closing for Labour, I thank members across the chamber for their contributions. It is important that we debate these matters, as it is clear that there are different views across the chamber. Liz Smith commented on that, as did other members. The debate has shown that there are fundamental differences in the way in which members believe that we should approach social security.

We should all know that social security provision is the cornerstone of a society that cares and is just. My colleague Claire Baker made that point well, as did other members in the chamber, such as Emma Roddick and Maggie Chapman. Social security is about supporting people. That support includes returning people to economic activity and making sure that there is enough work available for them. All those things matter, but the Tories do not acknowledge that it is a very unequal world out there and that people are trapped in poverty.