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If we are to have a mature debate about the 2021 act, we must acknowledge that we can see that Police Scotland is struggling. We know that it is underresourced and that the training that is in place consists of only a small two-hour package. Given the importance of this legislation, that is not enough.

I will not go back over the points that Michelle Thomson, Pauline McNeill and others have made about the legislation’s compliance with human rights law, because the minister has tried to address that issue, but I hope that the cabinet secretary will address it again in her closing remarks.

What is important is the way in which our communities are being failed. We are failing on the messaging front but, more importantly, we are failing on the promises that were made, which the minister reiterated in her opening remarks, on tackling hate crime in this country. It is important that we tackle hate crime in Scotland.

I cannot, in good conscience, sit back today and listen to the Conservative Party try to take the moral high ground. Conservative members in the chamber are part of a Conservative Party that tries to pit workers against workers, which politicises the most vulnerable in our society, including those who are seeking refuge, and which has fallen so far that it has no interest in fighting an election on its record, preferring to do so by dividing communities and creating tensions within them.

The publication of the Cass review is undoubtedly significant. I know that the cabinet secretary and the First Minister have continually said that they will leave the decision to the clinicians but, ultimately, the Scottish people expect the Government to step up and make a decision on whether it will implement well evidence-based recommendations to protect Scottish children. If not, why not? I ask the minister not whether, but when, a statement will be made to Parliament on this important issue so that members have time to discuss it.

Today’s debate is an important one, because we need robust good law and we must discuss things if they have not gone well. In my view, the SNP has yet again failed to effectively implement important legislation. Constituents are telling me that the SNP runs a Government that is founded on incompetence, and, in the past few days and weeks, the Government has been in denial about the strength of feeling across communities on the issue.

Poor governance and poor implementation of legislation will inevitably lead to challenge after challenge and struggle after struggle. For the First Minister, that has been the story of his leadership so far. Why is that important? It is important because people lose confidence.

I will go on to discuss the way in which we, as parliamentarians, need to be responsible in this area.

The implementation of the 2021 act and the subsequent reaction by the Government has shown that the Government is not performing. It is completely out of touch. Again, I want to make the point that the reason why that is important is that it causes our communities to lose faith.

As my colleague Pauline McNeill noted, the SNP had an opportunity to show that the act could be sensibly and correctly implemented, but instead we have ended up with a disastrous messaging system while completely failing to resource and train Police Scotland. It is not an issue on which the SNP can employ its usual dither and delay tactics; it needs urgent and purposeful action to correct things before our communities completely lose faith.

I always find the member’s contributions to be very reasonable, but in the context of this framework, I find that the Conservatives do not perform well.

I do not have much time left, so it is important that I turn to the Labour amendment, which calls for the use of section 12 of the 2021 act

“to add the characteristic of sex as an aggravator and protected characteristic under the Act”.

I have limited time, but I ask members to consider that. Why do I believe that? We only have to listen to some of the excellent speeches that were made by women at that time, including by my colleagues Johann Lamont and Pauline McNeill, who, along with others, contributed greatly to that debate. The minister and the cabinet secretary must accept that we cannot wait for four years and that continuing on the same path that they have been taking does not mean that the issue will disappear.

I do not have much time left, so I will close. I hope that the Parliament will support Labour’s amendment, because it sets out a balanced way to approach how we can implement this very important legislation.

The Cass review was clear in its recommendations. Given that the action that was taken in England was taken on the basis of a lack of evidence that puberty-suppressing hormones were safe or effective, many people in Scotland will be expecting action from the Government. What discussion has the cabinet secretary had with NHS Scotland in the light of the decision that has been taken in England? If action is to be taken here, will he set out to Parliament what the timescales are for such action?

Thank you, minister, for your opening statement. I am interested in some of the other measurements that we might look at around MUP. We have seen strong evidence and reports about how MUP impacts on health harms and affects the industry, but have you received any views or seen any evidence on some of the other indicators, both positive and negative, in relation to whether MUP helps to reduce crime and other social harms? Is there any evidence to suggest that people have moved to other addictive substances? Is there a need for more evidence in that area, or could you point us to some?

Yes, it had been suggested that that might happen, but there is some evidence—

To be clear, as this is an important policy that we will be voting on, is the Government confident that it worked in the area that it should have worked in and is the Government committed to looking at some of the evidence around the issue and any work that we need to do in that other area?

I confirm that Scottish Labour supports continuation of the MUP and its uprating to 65p.

We also support Public Health Scotland’s work on the issue. As we have heard, the data that has been produced is complicated, but we believe that it is clear that the MUP worked while 50p was an effective price and that lives were saved, as a result. That is undoubtedly significant, and it is only right that we continue the policy and look more at the impacts that an uprated MUP will have on public health. The MUP is, however, not and will never be effective on its own, so I welcome the minister’s acknowledgement of that.

In relation to dependent drinkers, as we have discussed this morning, Public Health Scotland concluded that

“There is limited evidence to suggest that MUP was effective in reducing consumption for those people with alcohol dependence. Those with alcohol dependence are a particular subgroup of those who drink at harmful levels and have specific needs. People with alcohol dependence need timely and evidence-based treatment and wider support that addresses the root cause of their dependence.”

Scottish Labour supports that statement.

The long-term underfunding of alcohol and drug partnerships, the cutbacks to health services and council budgets, and the real-terms cuts to investment in this year’s budget suggest that the Government could become overreliant on MUP as a unitary method of tackling alcohol harm. That will not work—experts tell us as much—so I hope that the Government will now outline what further commitment it will make to services that offer support in our communities. We believe that we cannot continue MUP for much longer without ensuring that the profit that it creates for larger companies is reinvested in publicly funded public health initiatives. We feel that that is only right, and we would seek to work with colleagues to achieve that.

The continuation of MUP is, in my view, a positive step, and it has Scottish Labour’s support. Once again, I urge colleagues to ensure that work is undertaken by the Government to properly fund and support services that will save lives, and that the Government commits to vital services in areas of highest deprivation. If we do not do that and act with purpose, we will quickly see the benefits of MUP fade, which is not something that any of us want. I know from today’s debate that that is the minister’ position, so I hope to work with her to put those things together.