Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am glad to hear from the cabinet secretary about the improvements and investments in technology that are being made. The member who spoke before me gave excellent examples of how technology can be used. There are, indeed, great examples, and we welcome how technology is being used, but the point is that we need to embed that in what we do in the NHS across Scotland.

It is fair to say that, having been in government for 18 years, the SNP has had ample opportunity to keep pace with innovation and bring forward the technological changes that our NHS has needed for many years and that it desperately needs now. That is possibly the part that was missing from the cabinet secretary’s excellent speech—the recognition that we have not kept pace.

This Government debate on recognising the significant health and economic benefits of supporting and adopting innovation in our NHS is welcome. It can be seen from the Labour amendment that we support the Government in enabling that. However, on the ground, the motion must feel as though it is only warm words, because the issue is action and the implementation of the fantastic things that have been spoken about.

As we know, thousands of patients are stuck on NHS waiting lists and are waiting for tests and to be diagnosed. We need to do all that we can to embrace innovation and explore the potential of new technology not only to speed up treatment but to make best use of the accuracy in diagnosis and offer the best treatment plans.

The reality is that our NHS is stuck in what can be described only as an analogue age. We need to address the day-to-day technological challenges that are faced. We have magnetic resonance imaging and CT scanners that are decades old and theatres that lie empty due to poor scheduling. Technology could help with that. As we have heard, it is common for doctors and nurses to use pagers, despite there being much more efficient ways of communicating.

No one disputes that our NHS needs urgent action—the cabinet secretary himself is saying that. We need to keep pace with the technologies, but, at times, it is hard to imagine how we can get to that point. The basics, such as data gathering, are a challenge across the NHS. Scotland has a population of around 5.5 million, yet its 14 health boards collect data in different ways and the systems cannot speak to each other. The use of different IT systems creates administrative burdens, while issues in accessing patient records create major barriers to effective care.

To ask the First Minister whether he will provide an update on how the Scottish Government is working to improve healthy life expectancy. (S6F-03900)

As I always do, I am enjoying Paul Sweeney’s speech. Do we need to build confidence among our patient base, particularly in primary care, about use of technology? Would that be an advantage for the practitioners, as well?

Scotland has the highest obesity rates in the United Kingdom, which disproportionately affects our most deprived communities and harms the physical and mental wellbeing of millions of people. That hinders economic activity and costs the national health service millions of pounds each year.

The Government consulted on restricting promotions of food and drink that is high in fat, sugar and salt. The consultation closed in May 2024, yet the Parliament is still waiting for the independent analysis of the consultation responses. When will the Government publish the analysis and introduce vital regulation to stop Scotland falling even further behind?

I, too, thank all the young carers in the public gallery. It is a delight to have them with us today. I give a special shout-out to the South Ayrshire young carers I met outside. They were really kind to spend some time with me—it was much appreciated.

I thank my colleague Paul O’Kane for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is absolutely right that we make time in this place to discuss such an important issue. Paul O’Kane has been a champion for carers in the current session of Parliament, bringing the issue to the chamber and working cross-party and outwith the Parliament in the way that other members, including Willie Rennie, have spoken about, as well as working with many organisations and charities to raise the voices of carers and ensure that we see lasting change. Again, I thank Paul O’Kane for giving us the opportunity to talk specifically about young carers today.

Other members have mentioned the data and statistics, so I will not go over those again. I simply highlight that, with more than 30,000 young carers under the age of 18, it is incumbent on us to support them. I thank Carers Trust for the work that it does in gathering all the information. As others have said, it is important that we have that information, to ensure that we understand the issues, and that we use it to guide us on the solutions that we need in order to provide adequate support to all our invaluable carers, particularly our young carers.

The debate is in response to young carers action day, and I commend young carers for the contribution that they make to our society when they are caring for their loved ones. As we know, young carers often do not recognise themselves as carers, and many do not think twice about what they do. We owe them a great deal of gratitude.

Dumfries and Galloway Carers Centre, in my region, wrote to me to ask for my support for young carers action day 2025, which I am delighted to give. The theme, “geezabreak”, focuses on the importance of providing breaks and respite for young carers and, as others have said, the need for schools and employers to better support them in school and work.

From previous debates and my meetings with young carers, I am aware that the reality for many young carers in Scotland is that caring responsibilities can dominate their lives. Young carers often do not realise that and continue without support. Sara Jackson, the young carers manager at the Dumfries and Galloway Carers Centre, works directly with young carers and explained in correspondence with me that the damaging impact of a lack of support and burnout means that many young carers are often at breaking point and their reality can be quite difficult. What stood out for me in her correspondence was the suggestion that, although young people need a break through getting straightforward respite from their caring responsibilities, they also need a break in that they must be given equal opportunities to thrive, as others have touched on. That is why Carers Trust Scotland is urging schools, trusts, colleges and universities to step up. It would be great to hear about that from other members, as well as getting a commitment from the minister to work across Government on that.

As politicians, it is our responsibility to work together to ensure that that happens, so that young carers feel confident in the support that is available to them and their loved ones. I commit to doing that. I hope that the debate spurs us all on to do more together in response to the needs of our young carers in Scotland. It is incumbent on us to do that.

I thank everyone who has spoken or is about to speak in the debate.

I, too, thank Audrey Nicoll for bringing the debate to the chamber.

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the importance of international women’s day 2025, with its theme, as we have heard, of accelerate action. The motion highlights some incredibly important points, with the focus on building momentum and urgency to address the unequal barriers and serious challenges still being faced by women in this country and around the world.

The health inequalities that women face are widespread and deeply frustrating. This is not a new issue, especially for women from deprived areas, and it is an issue that members have heard me speaking about before. Such inequalities are unacceptable. When we think about health outcomes for women, we hear women’s voices saying that they are not always understood or believed when they approach services. It is important that we get the opportunity to raise such issues in the chamber.

Women from the most deprived areas are still less likely to attend breast or cervical screening appointments, with at least an 11 per cent difference in uptake—not to mention the fact that female life expectancy varies drastically from the most to the least deprived areas. Although that is improving, it continues to create inequality among women, and I think that all of us will want to work tirelessly to overcome that challenge.

There is something in the idea of community-based provision of women’s health services going to the individual, instead of services depending on the individual to be able to go to them. I bring that up, because I have spoken to a lot of women, as I am sure we all have, during the weeks running up to international women’s day. Because women often put others before themselves, it is difficult for them to attend appointments, and the closer an appointment can be to a woman, the more likely they are to attend.

As we all know, women are more likely to experience poverty and gender-based violence. That is a reality. We have spoken about it previously in the chamber, and all members are absolutely determined to change it. Domestic abuse rates are rising, and we need to do more to tackle violence against women and girls. According to the annual statistics on domestic abuse for 2022-23, the police reported that 83 per cent of victims of domestic violence were female and that four in five incidents involved a female victim and a male suspected perpetrator. It is important that we do more work on that; indeed, we have had debates on it previously.

There is a real national need for education. I am trying to bring together some of the previously raised points, on which we agree, about educating men and young boys on how they should relate to women, their attitudes and their actions. Some of our male colleagues in the Parliament are real champions in that respect.

It is also important for me to discuss international women’s day on a global scale, focusing on the impact of the displacement and devastation being experienced by millions of women and girls not just throughout the world but, in particular, through the violence in Ukraine and Palestine. One could not be more accurate in saying that those women need acceleration and action.

Families have been ripped apart in Palestine. As a result of the ceasefire agreement this year, some were able to reunite, but, with the recent action by Israel further hindering Gaza’s ability to provide clean water and food for its numbers of children, pregnant women and breastfeeding women, malnutrition is a problem. The figure for those affected was sitting at about 4,000, but, clearly, it is expected to increase. Across the world, women need us to shout and raise our voices, because it is women who suffer hugely when there is war and devastation in their country.

I know that I am running out of time, but I just want to mention that there is hope. When we bring women together, we can all work towards positive outcomes. If we raise our voices in the Parliament and in our communities, we can make a difference.

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported view of the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland that proposed changes to legislation on religious observance diverge from the recommendation by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child to allow young people to independently opt out of religious observance at school. (S6O-04396)

Will the member accept an intervention?

I welcome the opportunity to open the debate on behalf of Scottish Labour. The people’s panel on reducing drug harm and deaths has produced some excellent work that analyses the current action to tackle drugs and what more can be done to reduce drug deaths and tackle problem drug use, which we all agree are prominent public health issues.

The people’s panel was set up to make recommendations and to answer the question,

“What does Scotland need to do differently to reduce drug related harms?”

That is an important question, because Scotland remains in the grip of a drug deaths health emergency, with lives being lost needlessly.

The tragic rise in drug-related deaths is a clear sign that the Government’s plan to tackle the crisis is not working. Voices of those beyond just those in the Parliament must scrutinise and push the Government on the issues, and the people’s panel is a robust way to do that. I know that every member in the Parliament believes that every individual who has lost their life through drug dependency has been lost before their time. It must always be remembered that behind every statistic is a friend or family member who has lost a loved one. I pay tribute to all the friends and families who campaign across Scotland on the issue.

Despite that work, and despite the national mission, Scotland remains in the grip of a drug deaths health emergency, with figures remaining stubbornly high. I recognise that that is not due to the Government’s lack of will to tackle the issue. I believe that it wants the situation to change but, unfortunately, it has lacked the ability to deliver. It is fair to say that the report from the people’s panel confirms that.

Society’s approach to drug addiction must be evidence based and should be one that shows compassion and kindness, and any solution must include the voices of those with lived experience. Therefore, my party and I support the engagement with the people’s panel and the recommendations to fully include those with lived and living experience in further work that is done.

To move Government to a position of action, I think that we in Opposition have a responsibility to be clear and honest. I will repeat the figures that the cabinet secretary raised—an act that showed his commitment to that approach, too.

If we are to understand the situation that we are in, we must acknowledge that Scotland continues to have the worst rate of drug-related deaths in Europe, with 1,172 people dying of drug misuse in 2023. That is a stark reminder of the public health challenge that we are facing, and a stark reminder to the Government that it is currently failing Scotland on the issue. As the report puts simply, Scotland faces a significant drug and alcohol problem, and it is important that addiction services, for both drugs and alcohol, are adequately funded and supported.

The report also highlights important points on funding and accountability, which were raised by the previous speaker. At the moment, there is no stability for service providers and no consistency of approach. The Scottish Government must acknowledge that and give assurances that the recommendations in that regard will be met urgently.

We cannot discuss this topic without acknowledging the fundamental truths behind the figures. We see vast inequalities in drug deaths, with people in Scotland’s most deprived communities 15 times more likely to die from drug misuse than those in the least deprived areas. Drug misuse disproportionately affects those who are already experiencing disadvantages in the underlying social determinants of health, including poverty, homelessness, trauma and stigma. The panel recognised that all those issues have an impact, but it also recognised that those issues are wider than its remit.

I recognise that there is no simple solution, but I welcome the panel’s report, which offers a fresh perspective on this complex issue. The report contains a collective statement and 19 recommendations across five themes. The conveners have spoken about many of those themes already. In the interests of time, I will not go over them, but I hope that other members might pick out some specific points. For my part, I will discuss some feedback from participants and make some general comments.

Feedback from participants highlighted the benefits and effectiveness of deliberative engagement, and it was welcome to hear that, overall, people felt that the experience was informative and allowed for collaborative discussion.

The report acknowledges the frustration of those on the ground with the fact that the problem is not about recognising the issue. It is not that the Government does not recognise the issue; rather, the problem is with the Government’s implementation of effective action. The Government’s response to the report indicates that it understands that there is a problem, but it is not moving to action. The report notes that that is the case. It is clear from the report that there is a lack of urgency when it comes to delivery on the part of the Government.

Due to pressures of time, I will stop there.

The 2022 census found that more than 60 per cent of school-age children in Scotland now identify as non-religious. In an increasingly secular and religiously diverse country, it is critically important that young people of all faiths and none have their beliefs and choices respected in school. Parents have always had the right to opt their children out of religious observance, and all state schools are legally required to provide that opt-out to parents; however, pupils have no equivalent right, no matter their age, maturity or personal beliefs. Can the cabinet secretary provide clarity on the timeframes for when we might get the information that she mentions in her answer? Is it her view that we should conform to the UN committee’s recommendations?