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The process has been going on for a number of years and is time-sensitive. Can you commit to ensuring that the matter is a top priority for the Government in terms of business?

Good morning. I have three questions about the safe staffing legislation, which has already been passed. First, will it be implemented in the first half of next year?

It is very helpful to know that you are still committed to that. We want to make sure that the link between safe staffing and safe patient outcomes is taken forward. That is great. Thank you.

It is unfortunate that today’s debate is required, but I am pleased to have the opportunity to bring it to the chamber. At the outset, I wish to thank Alcohol Focus Scotland, Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems—SHAAP—and others for the briefings that they have provided members with ahead of the debate.

I am pleased that the Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy is attending the debate, and I am pleased to see some Government back benchers attending, too. However, as of this morning, not a single Scottish National Party or Scottish Green MSP had signed the motion. In his speech on Tuesday delivering the programme for government, the First Minister did not mention recently released statistics regarding alcohol-specific deaths. Yet again, we are promised a review of strategy and a review of delivery, but action feels as far away as it ever has been.

I offer these words to the minister: if our approach to investing in alcohol services to reduce alcohol-related harm does not include accepting where we have gone wrong in the past and where we are currently not quite getting it right, we are doing a disservice to those who already are—and those who will become—dependent on alcohol, as well as to their friends, their families and their communities.

It is important to note that, in total, 1,276 deaths were attributed to alcohol-specific causes last year. That is 31 more than in 2021 and is the highest number since 2008. That is 1,276 individuals whose lives were lost before time, and whose friends and families have lost a loved one.

This is a public health emergency. I think that we all accept that. However, I join with key stakeholders today in asking why the amount of alcohol-related harm and the number of deaths have not convinced the Government that the matter is worthy of an emergency response. We have had no ministerial statement, no debate in Government time and no real path to delivery from the First Minister or the Minister for Public Health and Women’s Health. We can do so much better. Those who are suffering due to alcohol-related harm deserve better, and so do the countless families, friends and communities that have seen too many lose their lives to alcohol without the correct support being in place.

Taking a somewhat deeper look at the tragic announcement in recent weeks, we see further causes for concern. While male deaths continue to account for about two thirds of alcohol-specific deaths, the number of female deaths increased by 31 in 2022. It is pivotal that we analyse the detail and do all that we can to ensure that the increased number of female deaths is not repeated, and that we also reduce the number of male deaths from alcohol.

As we see in the motion, although deaths are the most extreme form of alcohol harm, they are likely to be accompanied by increases in other harms, including domestic abuse and violence, and we know that those harms disproportionately impact women. I repeat that this is a public health emergency, and I highlight the importance of having a multilayered response that addresses key factors including causes, related harms and improving outcomes.

I often take the opportunity in the chamber to call for the reduction and eradication of health inequalities. As the motion states,

“the risk of alcohol harm is already greater for the most disadvantaged in society, with people in Scotland’s most deprived communities reportedly over five times as likely to die and six times as likely to be admitted to hospital because of alcohol than people in the wealthiest communities”.

That is the devastating reality—one that our most deprived communities have to live with every day.

My view is that it is an extremely complex picture. A lot of our difficulties in more deprived areas are a result of the fact that services are much less accessible. We also have a system that builds in inequalities, so we have to look right across the board at what we can do to support such communities.

The impacts of alcohol harm are wide ranging and can affect anyone. However, the fact that, in 2023, those harms are still felt so acutely in our most vulnerable communities is appalling, and we need to ensure that our approach to tackling this public health emergency is underpinned by a desire to support those people who are most in need. The approach needs to be preventative in nature by tackling the root causes of alcohol harm, which perhaps comes back to Brian Whittle’s point. We must be strong in our approach to advertising where we have the powers to be so, we must put people before profits and, for those who are already dependent, we must have the right support services in place, through investment in our alcohol and drug partnerships, to give people an offer of hope at an otherwise incredibly challenging time.

As I said at the beginning of my remarks, this is not a debate that any of us want to have, but, due to the situation that we find ourselves in, it is necessary to have it. It is a debate that we need to have in Government time so that families and communities can see how seriously the Government takes the issue.

The number of alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland is at its highest level in 15 years, and, at the same time, there are 40,000 more children living in poverty in Scotland than there were a decade ago. The link between alcohol harm and poverty is damaging and well established, and we must do everything in our power to break that link.

Again, I pay tribute to the first-class organisations that research alcohol harm or suggest ways through this emergency; to those who provide services to people who are alcohol dependent; and to our great national health service staff, who always do their best to act when they are called on. They are all part of the fight, but they are being let down. They need a change of approach that shows urgency and tackles the emergency. So far, the Government has not stepped up to the mark, so I implore the minister to take the opportunity today to feed back and tell us how it will tackle what is an emergency for our communities.

We have had discussion on that point already, thank you.

Another new flagship policy that was announced was that of removing income thresholds for the best start payments. However, that is not a new policy at all. The Government is simply announcing again an already existing policy commitment. I think that we can do a lot better than that.

Health inequalities in Scotland are growing. We are two years into the so-called NHS recovery plan and it would be fair to say that things are not going well. Some 820,000 people are on waiting lists, more than 7,000 NHS vacancies remain unfilled and getting a dentist appointment is becoming increasingly difficult—it is borderline impossible in a region such as mine, the South of Scotland. By definition, our recovery plan should see things improve, no matter how slowly. However, under this SNP Government, things continue to get worse, and this programme for government highlights the fading ambition of a tired party of government.

Getting those things right provides the basic building blocks of a successfully run health service, but ours is crumbling beneath our feet, despite the best efforts of staff, who are overworked and underpaid. In public health, we are simply not moving with enough purpose. We see review after review of policies that the Government has considered and the enactment for years of a strategy with no real intention of delivery. However, just recently, we learned that alcohol-specific deaths have increased to their highest levels in years, with a tragic increase in the number of women dying. That situation will not improve by tinkering around the edges and moving slowly. We need real and lasting action and we need it now, and this programme for government falls very short of delivering on that, or, indeed, delivering anything. After 16 years, it seems that delivery is not this Government’s intention.

Indeed, the same issues with the announcement of strategies but a lack of delivery exists in women’s health. There was not even a mention of the women’s health plan in the First Minister’s speech to Parliament yesterday, and I have to say that I am not surprised. Health inequalities impacting women in our most deprived areas remain deep and divisive; staff safety legislation that would support women working in healthcare settings has still not been delivered; and there are reports of community midwifery and screening services becoming harder to access in the areas where they are needed most. Our communities want change, but this continuity First Minister and his continuity Government are just offering more of the same, and the reality is that more of the same means suffering for the vulnerable in our population.

We know that social care was put under incredible strain by Covid, yet, after working their fingers to the bone to keep the country moving, carers still cannot see a route to getting £15 an hour from this SNP-Green Government. They will rightly wonder if they will ever receive a decent wage from it. They are justified in concluding that the Government does not value their work enough. I look to the Green members, who have promised that section of our workforce a lot.

There is an alternative. The next UK Labour Government will fundamentally reform universal credit so that there is a proper safety net for people who are struggling to find work.

I will continue, thank you.

Within the first 100 days of that Government, we will deliver a new deal for working people that will ban zero-hours contracts, extend sick pay and ensure that the minimum wage is a wage that people can live on. [Interruption.]

I wish that the Government wanted to talk about its own programme for government. I have set out exactly why—

I am going to make progress.

I have set out some of the things that Labour has said that it will do in government at Westminster. The point that should be made to the front-bench members of the SNP Government is that Labour will deliver. We have a history of delivering. When Labour was last in power across the UK, we lifted 2 million children out of poverty, 200,000 of whom were in Scotland. There are now 40,000 more children living in poverty in Scotland than there were a decade ago. That is the SNP’s legacy and it will not be erased by such underwhelming reform as the SNP proposes.

In the here and now, we have to recognise that Scots have suffered through serious financial and health concerns due to the cost of living and the growing NHS crisis. Those same people will expect a bit more from the first programme for government from the First Minister. I imagine that many of them have been left disappointed. I hope that SNP members will consider those points.

I note the commitments of the cabinet secretary and the Government on child poverty, health and social justice, but I hope that I will be forgiven for pointing out that it is all very vague. Unfortunately, however, I think that we can all agree that vague is pretty much what we have come to expect from this Government. Further, not only do the SNP’s back-bench members expect it, they accept it.

After 16 years of varying incompetence and financial mismanagement, we are left with another programme for government that does not amount to much more than carrying on and papering over the cracks. It is a programme for government that suggests that this Administration has run out of ideas and run out of road. Indeed, it is a programme for government that has been described by key stakeholders as timid. Scots are being told of council tax and income tax rises to come, and the top line in this programme for government is one that has been pushed for relentlessly by Scottish Labour: the £12 for carers. However, that £12 for carers is seven months away and it is more than a year since Humza Yousaf first made that promise. We need it now, and we need a route to £15 an hour.