Seòmar agus comataidhean

I believe, as all members do, that we are, if we are not already deep into one, on the cusp of a national emergency. I see it every day in my region, and now that we have returned to Parliament I am distinctly aware that the issue should be the primary focus of the Scottish Government, going forward.

The cost of feeding your family and heating your home in this country is unmanageable, and in many cases it will be fatal. We have to frame the debate in those terms, because that is how worrying the situation is. Anything less than that is not serious and will not work.

I thank the Trussell Trust for all its work, and I particularly thank Fiona, whom I visited in Peebles during the recess. Fiona brought home to me the reality of people’s lives at this time. The Trussell Trust’s research has revealed that more than 2 million people across the UK have skipped meals during the past three months in order to keep up with other essential costs. Fiona told me that mothers, fathers and carers are choosing not to eat so that their children can eat, and that grandparents are skipping meals in order to put money aside for heating their homes this winter. We often hear from both Governments that Scotland and the UK are the best places to live and raise a family, but that is all just public relations nonsense, if the reality is as stark as that, for so many people.

I have said this in the chamber before and I say it again: I deplore the Tory Government’s attack on working-class people. The Tories are the friends of the rich and show no interest in redistributing wealth to those who need it most. We know that the new Prime Minister will try to deregulate and strip taxes from the wealthiest, and we also know the effect that that will inevitably have.

So, now, more than ever, we need the Scottish Government to step up and use the powers that it has to help those who need it most. Scottish Labour has called for immediate action, including a rent freeze, a winter eviction ban and more affordable public transport to directly support people at the sharp end. After visiting Aberlour Child Care Trust and meeting young families in Dumfries, I also call on the Government to wipe out school-meals debt. That simple action could bring great relief to many families.

It is promising that some of those commitments have been met in the programme for government, but we need emergency legislation in order to implement them without further delay. I want to make an important point, which is that we need to get a grasp of how long the measures have taken. My colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy raised that. In my kindest moments, I might say that the SNP just has poor time-management skills, but we must do this with urgency. The increased child payment, for example, is very welcome, but why have six to 16-year-olds had to wait 21 months to claim what they were promised in 2018?

The member knows that I do not like pats on the back for the Government. We must do more and we must do it faster. That is the ask.

We have dithered on an emergency rent freeze when the writing was on the wall. We even saw the ludicrous spectacle of the Scottish Green Party going out of its way to tell us that that could not be done—but it can be done.

We must remember that proper reform is not a one-shot policy announcement for a polling increase here or there, or for a day of positive press attention. It alters the course of people’s lives for the better through determined and consistent action. I look to members on the back benches when I say that we should be asking Government to do everything that it can—even when it is our own party that is in Government.

All that is why Scottish Labour is calling for an emergency cost of living act.

I thank Liz Smith for bringing this upbeat and lovely debate to the chamber. On behalf of Scottish Labour, I congratulate every member of team Scotland on their efforts at the Commonwealth games. As we have heard, the team secured the second-largest medal haul in its history, and the largest outside a home games—it won 51 medals, 13 of which were gold. That is a huge success and it is right that people have spoken fondly of that time in the summer.

It is the athletes who we see, but, as Brian Whittle mentioned, many more people help out in the background—from the coaches at national level to the volunteers at local clubs, families and friends who give up much of their time to support individuals, and those who have campaigned for years to ensure that sport and leisure facilities the length and breadth of our country stay open. Despite facing significant difficulties and cuts to services, our sports facilities often stay open because of volunteers’ commitment. Such people allow our athletes to flourish and make such a successful contribution.

As has been mentioned, what stands out is the success of female athletes, which I will focus on in some of my speech. Like other members, I was delighted to see Eilish McColgan win gold in the women’s 10,000m and set a Commonwealth games record along the way. Laura Muir’s 1,500m, which has been mentioned, was another significant success for team Scotland. Scotland’s athletes performed on one of the highest stages and won in some of the most competitive events, as Brian Whittle mentioned. Such special moments live with athletes, their support teams and viewers at home for a lifetime.

Team Scotland’s leader was Elinor Middlemiss, who is the first female to hold the role. We hope that many more women will hold that position in the future. The team had more female than male members, which is another great success for the country. It is abundantly clear that we have come a long way in smashing the glass ceiling, although I argue, as always, that there is much further to go.

We must use the Commonwealth games as a platform and an opportunity for women and girls across the country to be inspired by more summers of sporting success for Scottish athletes. As Brian Whittle mentioned, investment must be made to allow Scottish sport to continue to grow and improve.

For many children in Scotland today, it remains the case that a gym membership is too expensive and that paying to access sports pitches and running tracks would be too much of a financial strain on families. As a result of lots of cuts in local services—and, let us be clear, to councils—we have a long way to go before we can truly achieve equality of opportunity in sport.

We hear plenty of commitments from the Government but, too often, they are not met with sufficient action. I appreciate that the Covid-19 pandemic put sport on hold for a significant period and made community sport that bit more difficult, but I call on the Scottish Government to use team Scotland’s success as a catalyst for a greater focus on sport and to ensure that there is opportunity for all of us to take part in sport.

I congratulate team Scotland again on its success in the Commonwealth games and I wish the athletes well in their preparations for the Olympics in 2024. I call on the Scottish Government to ensure a positive response that allows access to sport and sporting facilities for all.

As we have heard from other members, mesothelioma is a cruel and painful condition that often takes hold years before it is diagnosed. According to Health and Safety Executive data, the disease was responsible for 78 deaths in my local area of East Ayrshire between 1981 and 2019, with 19 of those deaths occurring between 2015 and 2019. That suggests a disease that is taking hold in a particular generation in a much more decisive way as time goes on. Those are 19 families that have had someone stolen from them only very recently, and it is clear that this is a condition that causes lasting pain to families and communities.

We can see, therefore, that mesothelioma is a growing problem that, as other members have said, we must face up to. In particular, we need to raise awareness to ensure that anyone exposed to asbestos can be diagnosed as quickly as possible. Alongside that, there must be a greater focus on the hidden dangers of lung cancer, which takes the lives of so many in ex-mining communities in areas such as mine, and particularly of those men who worked in heavy industries year on year across the South Scotland region. Far too often, such conditions are work related and they must be recorded as such.

Beyond the physical effects of those conditions, the pain to society is acute, particularly because the conditions themselves were so easily avoidable and because it is through decisions that were made in the past that so many people are becoming sick. We did not know that, because of the work that those people were undertaking, their lives would be taken early.

Thank you. That point is well made, as is the point that, although the condition is seen in men in heavy industry, women and others are affected because of such issues. We must be aware of that.

We have touched on the fact that so many people who suffered exposure to asbestos during their working life have never received any serious compensation, often due to the fact that employers would jump through hoops to claim that the cause of people’s cancer could not be proven. At a time when workers’ rights are back on the agenda in a big way, it seems appropriate to renew the call for people to be fairly compensated. Deep down, I know that we can never really compensate someone for such horrendous injuries in their workplace. However, I think that we all agree that we must push that forward and ensure that people get what they are absolutely entitled to.

As people have said, despite that knowledge, to this day, asbestos is mined in certain parts of the world and people with significant interests in the UK are profiting from that process. That is ideologically and morally wrong. In Scotland, we must be clear in our opposition to that trade and the Parliament should be vocal in condemning those practices. In Scotland, there are nearly 200 new cases of mesothelioma a year and yet we are still hearing about cases of asbestos in buildings.

In closing, as always, I thank the groups who raise these issues, such as the Clydebank Asbestos Group—it is lovely to see the group here. My dad grew up in Clydebank and I have heard many stories about the mountains of asbestos that were around in his childhood. I also thank the Scottish Mesothelioma Network for keeping the debate alive. We have a collective responsibility to maintain a focus on the issue, so I thank Marie McNair for bringing it to the chamber.

To ask the Scottish Government what preparations have been made to protect the economy of rural communities in areas like South Scotland from a repeat of the storms experienced last year. (S6O-01300)

Child poverty figures and indeed some of the estimated figures in Scotland highlight the true scale of the problem facing thousands of families across the country. I want to back up my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy and say that I find those on the Government front bench quite self-congratulatory on this. We need to be much stricter with ourselves in this Parliament in relation to how serious the issue is and we should be talking about the things that need to happen.

The minister has not mentioned the priority groups affected by child poverty. There are far too many children living in poverty in Scotland today, but inequalities mean that disabled children and those from ethnic minority backgrounds or lone-parent families, for example, need extra support, and that has not been addressed. Can the minister set out a clear strategy to support those children and families?

The response from local communities to storms last year and earlier this year was admirable, and it is vital that communities be included in the development of all future local resilience plans. Will the Scottish Government work with local people, local businesses, many of which are very small in the south of Scotland, and councils to ensure that local small business economies do not face long-term adverse impacts of storms in the future, thus protecting local businesses and rural economy jobs?

I am interested in that cross-departmental Government working, and I would be interested to know whether you have any examples of having done that well. You mentioned transport as being particularly important in rural areas.

I am also interested to know whether you can commit to asking the Deputy First Minister to give us some kind of plan, because it is key that the ministerial departments work closely together. Perhaps some kind of plan about how he sees the next year would be helpful, particularly in the remit of health inequalities.

I absolutely condemn the policies of the current Conservative UK Government. It was interesting that Dr Walsh said at a previous meeting that if we had a change in Government at UK level, that would make an enormous difference to what we could do, including as a devolved nation. However, it is important that we in this committee talk about what we can do in Scotland. I absolutely welcome your commitment to do everything that we can, and I assure you that I will do my very best to hold you to that.

I will talk a little bit about the evidence that Claire Sweeney, from Public Health Scotland, gave to the committee. If you do not mind, I will read out a few points that she made. She said:

“although we have talked about a lot of the challenges that we are facing in Scotland, the big message that I want to emphasise and get across is that we can do a lot about inequality. There are lots of levers and opportunities in Scotland to address it. It is by no means something that is intractable that we cannot address; we can address it.”

She went on to say:

“Given the millions of pounds that the public sector spends in Scotland every year, there is a huge opportunity to use that money to good effect, and we see many ... things”

that we could do in Scotland. She said:

“For example, we hold public bodies to account for financial and access targets, but we do not hold public leaders to account as strongly ... That is something really clear and tangible that could be done.”

She also said that she

“would like budgets and spend across Scotland to be more closely aligned to impact”,

on things such as

“reducing inequality and child poverty”.

and stated:

“It is about the early years, access to education and training, having good and fair work, having a good and affordable standard of living and having healthy communities in place so that people have access to green space, good transport”.

Finally, she noted that

“There is a lot of agreement on what can be done”,

and that we in Scotland need to

“mobilise the rest of the system”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 31 May 2022; c 13-14.]

to do that.