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You mentioned that we must change the way that we deliver our health and social care while maintaining access to services. You have also said that you and John Burns are still discussing how the recovery plans will demonstrate ambition for reform, but that there is still a lot to do on cementing milestones for that delivery plan. As you said, it has been 8 months since the Scottish Government published the recovery plan. What is your assessment of progress, if any has been made, since its publication?

We all understand that there is no quick fix, but the daily statistics on accident and emergency, cancer, delayed discharges and diagnosis are bleak. Is the plan working? What confidence can we have in it?

You mentioned that the NHS is under pressure; we know that. However, it is always under some form of pressure, and it was always under pressure during all the years that I worked in that environment before coming to Parliament.

The Audit Scotland report notes that

“There is not enough detail in the plan to determine whether ambitions can be achieved in the timescales set out.”

Given the scale and complexity of the challenges that face Scotland’s NHS, do you agree that much greater detail is needed if we are to get the NHS back on an even keel?

Retention, which you mentioned and which we have talked about at length, is the key issue. According to damning research by the Royal College of Midwives, midwifery is at breaking point. Three out of four RCM members in Scotland are considering leaving their posts, while 88 per cent are reported to be experiencing work-related stress. NHS boards are being encouraged to optimise the retention of midwives, but midwives tell us that the profession continues to be in crisis. What immediate action is the Scottish Government taking to respond to midwives’ concerns right now, and to improve retention rates and midwives’ health and wellbeing?

The question was about detail, not data.

You spoke about displacement. A report from the Institute of Economic Affairs has suggested that minimum unit pricing is responsible for a certain amount of displacement to higher-value categories. It says that the policy has resulted in an extra 8.2 million litres of pure alcohol being sold in the 50p to 64p per unit category and a further 0.4 million litres being sold above 70p per unit. What investigatory work has the Scottish Government commissioned into that level of displacement, and do you recognise the argument that the policy has pushed consumers towards the mid-range rather than away from alcohol in its entirety?

To follow that up, we have heard that alcohol-related deaths have increased by 10 per cent since 2020. The minister said that the most recent year with data on ABIs is 2019-20, when the level was 23 per cent higher than the expected standard. However, between 2013 and 2020, the number of ABIs declined by 28 per cent. We heard that you are reviewing evidence, but what can we do immediately and in the short term to really produce an uptick in ABIs, which are critical—particularly in deprived areas?

Thank you for drawing attention to the inequality that women face in accessing services. If 51 per cent of the population are struggling to access services that are being developed, that should probably be the number 1 priority, given the make-up of this committee.

The number of alcohol-related hospitalisations and deaths is eight times higher in the most deprived areas of Scotland. We should all be ashamed about that. We really need to figure out how to target and support those communities. Support mechanisms for alcohol misuse are often far more sparse in deprived areas than they are in the most affluent areas. What can we do to narrow the gap and target deprived communities?

My question follows on from Gillian Mackay’s point. It has been revealed that one of the impacts of minimum unit pricing is that Scottish consumers have contributed £270 million more than was projected, in terms of their spending on alcohol. What consideration has the Scottish Government given to the possibility of ring-fencing proceeds from alcohol to be spent on rehabilitation and treatment? The current model feeds the revenue straight back into the supply chain.

I thought that one of the intentions was to reduce the amount of alcohol that people are drinking. What I am suggesting is that that has not happened; they are still drinking the same, if not more, alcohol, but they are buying it in a higher-value category.

I have only one question. In your report, you note that there is no overarching strategy for tackling health inequalities in Scotland, despite the endemic nature of the persistent and acute inequalities that exist. We have just heard about some of the activity that you are undertaking in that regard, such as on weaving the strands of spending across different portfolios. What conversations have you had with the Scottish Government on the need to establish urgently an overarching strategy on health inequalities that would act almost as a linchpin as we recover from the pandemic?