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We brought the debate to the chamber to ensure that the voices of our communities are heard loud and clear. This is reckless decision making by the Government. Has the minister asked a single question on the research process? Has the minister asked why NHS Lanarkshire was not involved throughout the process?

I often question the Government’s political decision making. Its political priorities and decision making are often misplaced, which leads to significant errors in policies over which it has full control. The downgrading of neonatal services in University hospital Wishaw is one of its more significant errors to date. It is an award-winning neonatal unit situated in an area of high deprivation, and it serves a population to which it means a great deal. We heard from Jackie Baillie that, at a time when staffing levels are presented as a danger by our trade unions, the unit retains its staff. It works in an important area that it wants to continue to contribute to.

I absolutely agree with the member on that point. I will go back to what my colleague Monica Lennon said—make this decision make sense, because it makes no sense at all.

The service is being downgraded, which will result in newborns who require specialist care being transferred to one of three specialist neonatal units across Scotland, when they should be going to our best and award-winning neonatal unit. My colleague Mark Griffin gave us an insight into what it is like for families, and he mentioned the key point that the unit is needed every other week.

On behalf of my party, I say that we support those in the gallery and campaigners on this issue.

I hope that I can call on some of the back benchers from the Government parties—both the Green and the SNP members, and those who represent the area, in particular—to call on the Government to pause this, look at the evidence and give some transparency about what has happened. It is disappointing that members who represent constituencies in the area do not seek to ensure that the evidence is open and available for staff and families to look at.

We are told time and again that health services are best delivered when they are delivered locally in communities, and even more so in communities where there is already a lack of services or amenities or in communities with high levels of deprivation. That therefore begs the question: what is the Government thinking, and why is it not reversing the decision? The people of Lanarkshire and the area that is served by the unit deserve so much better. I can say categorically that we will continue to fight this. We need to ensure that the communities are heard.

It is disappointing, as usual, to read the SNP’s amendment to today’s motion. Yet again, it is about the SNP; it fails to recognise the importance of this issue and the importance to the community, and it fails to mention any of the concerns that these families and communities have.

The minister needs to meet staff, consultants and families from the area. Indeed, the minister needs to take some interventions from MSPs, particularly those who represent the area.

Despite what Collette Stevenson’s contribution indicated, one family with a newborn being forced to travel miles for care is one too many when they could get expert support in their own area. We have heard about the complications with stress, about the cost and about the way in which families will feel after the event. We must take those things into consideration and not dismiss them.

Members have outlined fully why they support the unit and the risk that is posed to premature babies if the change is made. We do not need to change things and have one thing instead of another; we can have both. That is clear from the debate.

Publish the evidence. Make it transparent. Make sure that we know what is actually happening.

The expertise on these wards is second to none. The community links are strong and the trust that is placed in the service that is provided is at the highest level. It would be a mistake to put any of that at risk.

In closing, I ask the minister to fully consult all of the population of the area and the MSPs in the area and to make all of the evidence transparent to us.

The reality is that our communities are being seriously let down by the major cuts to fire service budgets, which are putting lives at risk. Reports in local Ayrshire papers last week suggest that there is

“evidence that on at least two days last week, appliances from larger and smaller stations alike across the area were noted on the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service’s own system as being unavailable for service because there are insufficient staff to operate them safely.”

The cuts are reducing the ability of firefighters to provide high-quality services. Our firefighters are standing against the cuts, as are the FBU and our communities. When will the Scottish Government listen and reverse these dangerous and damaging cuts?

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and the Fire Brigades Union to discuss the impact of any reduction in budget and services on communities, including in the South Scotland region. (S6O-02531)

As others have done, I take the opportunity to thank Gillian Mackay for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is a really important issue, as members have mentioned.

As we have heard today, there is willingness across the chamber to make progress on a response to the issue, with purpose. I therefore hope that the Government will outline soon how it will do that, and that it will consider using some Government time for a debate on the matter so that we can have a more in-depth discussion.

It is right that we talk of the serious environmental impacts of single-use vapes. They have created a throwaway culture, which, as we have heard, is damaging our environment and our efforts to tackle the climate emergency.

I will not restate all the effects that members have put across so well so far today, as I know that time is marching towards the start of the chamber’s afternoon sitting. I will, however, use a small amount of the time that we have to talk about something that has been mentioned, including in the motion; the concerningly high rate of use among our young people. Sheila Duffy of ASH Scotland has said that single-use vapes are

“creating addiction among young people, including very young children in primary and lower secondary schools, where we haven’t seen much of an issue with tobacco.”

That is a really concerning statement.

The content of vapes is such that they are becoming addictive for people of an age at which tobacco addiction is generally unheard of. That has been exacerbated by the facts that the products are easy to access, are bright, colourful and catch the eye—as we have heard from other members—and, compared with similar products, can be cheap. That brings together the health and environmental impacts of single-use vapes.

I have been trying to ascertain the number of people presenting to hospital addiction services or other health services with complications that are linked to vaping. It has become very apparent that there might need to be some discussion between Government and the health boards to consider having a separate logging option for health concerns or complications relating to vapes, because it is really difficult to find out what the figures for that are. It would be useful for us to separate smoking from vapes, as other members have mentioned.

I know that we are tight for time, so I will conclude. It has been a very worthwhile debate, and there have been many reasonable suggestions from members of the various parties across the chamber. It is clear that we need to deal with the environmental impact. I look forward to the minister's contribution. I understand that we are having an environment debate and that she has responsibility for the environmental impacts. However—to pick up on Stephanie Callaghan’s point—I would like to know what the Government will do now and how we can work across the UK, because some commitments have been made by the UK Government. Will the minister work on a cross-portfolio basis to see whether there is something that we can do about recording the damage from and impacts of vaping and e-cigarettes, particularly in respect of single-use vapes?

I have met midwives across the South Scotland region and what is clear to me is that there is now significant pressure on midwifery professionals’ ability to deliver regular high-quality community-based services to those most in need. It is the Government’s lack of a proper education and workforce strategy for midwives and its inability to support rural health boards with high numbers of vacancies that are contributing to those pressures. Will the Government accept that fact and set out in full the action that it can take that will ensure that midwives are supported to provide community-based services in areas that are most in need?

To ask the Scottish Government how it plans to invest in community midwifery services to ensure that they are consistently delivered in areas of need rather than in centralised, and often hard-to-access, locations. (S6O-02502)

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.