Seòmar agus comataidhean

Law works by public consent, and that is how it has worked so far. We just have to remind people that this is a legal requirement. Enforcement should not really be necessary. We want people to comply because they see the good reason for the rest of the community to comply. Circumstances may arise where it is not necessary, but I do not think that we are there yet.

I have a little more to say, so I hope that I will get a little more time. In the early days of Covid, my email inbox exposed the huge differences between the haves and the have-nots—between those who were stuck in flats with children and no easy access to outdoors and those who could find comfort in their gardens, and between those who could ride out the economic deprivation and those who could not. Covid threw a harsh light on the divisions in society.

We rightly focus on Ukraine and its people, and the devastation there, but we should also ensure that we do not just return to business as usual. Covid has shown us all that we must do better for those in Scotland who do not have equal opportunities to enjoy a healthy, happy and fulfilling life. Covid exposed that inequality to every single one of us in the chamber, through our inboxes. Let us remember that and, while dealing with Covid, let us also deal with the inequalities that it has exposed in our society.

I think that I shall cope. We shall find out.

As is reflected in our language policy, all bills, delegated legislation and their accompanying documents are in English. When an MSP or a committee considers that there are good reasons for translation into a language other than English, it can be requested through the clerks. However, I am not clear whether that covers executive summaries of reports. I will discuss that with my colleagues, confirm it and return to the member when I am clear.

At the moment, I am afraid that they are published first in English and then in another language. Scots includes the Doric—indeed, it is a range of dialects such as Lallans and Scotch, as well as more local dialects such as Buchan, Dundonian, Glesga and Shetland—so it is more complicated. Nevertheless, Scots, which includes the Doric, continues to be recognised by the SPCB.

With a languages bill expected from the Scottish Government, we will have to allow that political process to progress. The SPCB will reflect any legislative or policy changes to its operations, including the Official Report and the Business Bulletin.

I welcome the programme for the roll-out of boosters in the spring, and I declare an interest, because I might be lucky enough to be in one of those cohorts. However, with the potential removal of mandatory face coverings and social distancing and the increasing prevalence of Covid infections, does the First Minister agree that lateral flow tests should remain funded and free on request? What discussions has the Scottish Government had with the UK Treasury in that regard?

Fur historical forby cultural reasons, the Scots Pairlamentary Corporate Body leid policy taks tent o the yaise o Scots.

For historical and cultural reasons, the SPCB language policy recognises the use of Scots. We support MSPs in using Scots in a number of ways: in the chamber, in committees, with constituents and when taking their oath or making their affirmation. For example, MSPs can use Scots in the chamber and committees. If it is just a few words and the meaning can be readily understood or the MSP immediately translates, that can readily be accommodated. For more lengthy speeches, the prior agreement of the Presiding Officer or convener is required.

I hope that the member gets her time back for this intervention—she is making an interesting and important point. The problem is that, in an inquiry such as a fatal accident inquiry, as soon as there is a hint that there will be a criminal prosecution, the inquiry is sisted—it is stopped for the time being—to give the person who might be accused some protection.

Let me first express my condolences to Milly’s family. I have a 10-year-old granddaughter, the same age as Milly was when she died, and have similar images of a bubbly girl with all her life ahead of her. I cannot begin to imagine the pain of losing a child. I commend Milly’s family for pursuing answers and accountability for her death and I commend Anas Sarwar for his tenacity in representing their cause.

I understand and am sympathetic to much in the motion, but I am going to pause over the charter and I will tell members why. I recently pursued a local authority over its failures towards children with severe learning difficulties who were nonverbal and suffered assaults at the hands of their teacher. With the help of the parents and some brave staff, after four years of pursuing the case—through police, a prosecution and finally an independent inquiry—the council was finally brought to book.

As a result of that, I have called for the principle of corporate criminal responsibility to be considered for public bodies—perhaps through a public body criminal responsibility bill, which the Government has indicated that it will investigate. The First Minister has stated:

“Given the seriousness of the issue, I want to say very clearly, through Christine Grahame, to the parents involved that I will, of course, consider any representations that are made to me.”—[Official Report, 24 February 2022; c 25.]

That is something that could be applied to NHS boards because, quite often, the people who are involved have gone somewhere else and there is no discipline—there is nothing that can be done. It would have to be used only in extremis, but I feel that it is something that requires pursuit.

I am very sympathetic to a statutory charter, but I think it is premature in the current circumstances. I note what the cabinet secretary had to say about discussions. Currently, there is the police investigation and the wider public inquiry into the

“planning, design, construction, commissioning and, where appropriate, maintenance”

of both the Golden Jubilee and the Queen Elizabeth. That inquiry by Lord Brodie will determine how ventilation and water contamination issues affected patient safety and care in the hospitals and whether those issues could have been prevented. It will also recommend how past mistakes can be avoided in future NHS projects.

Other areas that the inquiry team are investigating include the management of the projects by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and NHS Lothian, and whether the “organisational culture” at the health boards

“encouraged staff to raise concerns”—

or perhaps prevented them from doing so.

Crucially, it will also consider whether individuals or bodies

“deliberately concealed or failed to disclose evidence of wrongdoing or failures”

during the projects. Those findings will be invaluable in establishing what is required next.

With both on-going potential criminal charges and the report that is yet to be published, any legislative measures are in my view premature—not ruled out, but premature. There may even be a fatal accident inquiry; I agree that those take a long time. If there is, it is open to Milly’s family to apply for legal aid so that they can be separately represented. Just like criminal prosecutions, fatal accident inquiries are heard by the Crown on behalf of the public, so there is no entitlement for individuals to have separate representation. However, I expect that if an inquiry were to take place, Milly’s family would be successful in securing legal aid.

I conclude by again extending my condolences to Milly’s family. I am glad that the debate was held. I hope that at the end of those processes, Milly’s family’s persistence ensures that all children receive the very best, safe care. I thank Anas Sarwar for securing the debate.

Over the past few horrific weeks, we have witnessed dreadful images of women, young and old, carrying their few possessions, some pushing baby buggies, through the ruins of Ukraine to some kind of sanctuary. That reminds us of women’s resilience and determination in the worst of circumstances.

Although what I will describe is by no means on the same scale, I hope to illustrate how far we, as women, have come over the short period of three generations in my family, through the resilience and determination of my grandmother and mother. However, of course, there is still a long road ahead in addressing bias not only in Scotland but across the globe.

The first member of my family whom I will mention is Margaret Grahame—my paternal grandmother—who was born in 1877. The daughter of a shepherd, her childhood was peripatetic because her father had to move for work. Her education would have been sparse and disrupted. She left school at 14 and went straight into service as a lady’s maid. A trait that she kept throughout all her long life was to favour doilies, cake stands and cups and saucers from her press. She never had a mug in the house in all the time that I knew her.

There is a picture of my grandmother in her Edwardian dress with bustle and hair piled high. She was tall for her generation, and was a strong and determined woman. Having received a sum as compensation for her heart condition, she put down, with her husband Yade, a deposit on 305 Easter Road, Leith, where she lived until her death. Although she had been diagnosed with that heart condition, she fooled everybody and lived to 93.

She sent her four children, including a daughter, to the then fee-paying Leith academy. Somehow, that shepherd’s daughter managed the finances and saw education—this has been referred to by other members—as the route to improvement, as it is to this day. Despite that, her advice to me as a teenager was to become a clerkess and to marry early. I resisted the latter until my mid-20s, which was unusual for the time.

However, my grandmother’s advice about education stayed with me and was reinforced by my father, who never discriminated between boys and girls. I became the first girl in my road in the housing scheme to stay at school beyond 15, and was the first to go to university.

Another Margaret Grahame—my mother—had an even tougher life. Born in 1922, her father was a miner. Her mother died at the birth of her baby brother Anthony, when Margaret was only 15 months old. When she was six, her father died—he succumbed to a head injury that he sustained when a pit prop fell on him. On the very day of her father’s funeral, she was—this is almost Dickensian—forcibly taken by strangers, kicking and screaming, along with her young brother, to an orphanage. She was separated from her brother on the following day. My mother spent months in an orphanage, until finally becoming a ward of court and being placed, with her brother, in the care of an aunt. Those were bad years of real poverty—and tragedy; her brother Anthony, to whom she was very close, died of meningitis at just 11 years old.

At 14, Margaret—or Margie as she was known—had, like my grandmother before her, a live-in job at a vicarage, which paid four shillings weekly. Rebellious even at that age, she refused to wear the servile grey suit as ordered by the vicar’s wife and quit the job. She progressed to an enamel works at Burton upon Trent for 6 shillings a week. From there, she went to work in a factory in Church Gresley for 7 shillings and sixpence a week.

In 1940, my mother was making de-icers for war planes at the British Tyre & Rubber Co Limited, before she volunteered for the women’s land army. In March 1942, she met my father. The rest is history; that is why I am here. The war changed everything for her. Being part of what became a large extended family meant everything to her, having been deprived of that in her own life.

Those trials, sorrows and incredible hardships, including poverty, that my mother endured during her formative years, became the foundation of her indomitable spirit and of her exceptional qualities of compassion for and understanding of anyone who was troubled—particularly children and young adults. Principled to breaking point, she was fearless in defending the underdogs and attacking injustices. As I have grown older, I recognise how much influence she has had on my values.

I left school before I was 17 but—remembering the value of education—with highers in my back pocket. I first approached Ferranti, which was a major electronics company in Edinburgh at the time, to get a job, because I had science and maths qualifications. On the factory tour, I met a woman who was working in the research department. She told me that there was no future for women at Ferranti. I took her advice.

Unfortunately, I then went for a clerkess job, as my granny had suggested to me all those years previously. At that company, I saw young men being promoted over bright and able women. I packed in the job and went to university.

Why do I tell members this? The women in my family and life played fundamental parts in taking Christine Grahame from her predetermined biased destiny—leave school at 15, get engaged at 18, get married at 20 and have her first child at 22—to seeing herself as an individual who had the courage to aim beyond that clerkess job and early marriage. Those two Margarets gave me that determination. We, as individual women and men in Parliament, can give other young girls that determination and self-confidence.

Does the minister welcome the inquiry into town centre regeneration that I understand the Economy and Fair Work Committee is undertaking? Will he look at Galashiels in my constituency, where energise Gala—the Energise Galashiels Trust—has worked very hard over the years with politicians from all parties to try to deal with the very thing that we are discussing, which is small shops disappearing after being trampled over by large supermarkets?

Thank you for that clarity.

In war as in peace, the independence of our broadcast media must be protected from political interference. That independence presents, of course, a stark contrast to the sight and sound of what happens when the state has outright and unfettered control of public broadcasting, as it does in Russia as that country wages war on its innocent neighbour.

We know that Russia is using cluster bombs, that civilians are being targeted and that Ukrainians do not welcome the invaders but the vast majority of Russians do not know that. In Putinspeak, it is a special mission to rescue Russians living in Ukraine from Nazi-like persecution and from a predatory NATO, and that Russians are the victims. That is what happens, in extremis, when politicians censor and suppress a free press—which, even in a democracy, we must guard against. Independent broadcasters, such as the television channel Dozhd and its website, and radio station Ekho Moskvy, have been shut down as Russia eradicates non-state media. We must hope that, through social media, and especially through the eyes of the younger generations, the truth of the war is seen for what it is in all its barbarity.

The public purpose of the BBC is, inter alia,

“To provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them”,

through

“accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming ... Its content should be provided to the highest editorial standards.”

I want to address that last point.

We have wall-to-wall coverage of the invasion. We are seeing real-time reports, analysis, and political and international commentary. Twenty-four-hour rolling news means that there must not be any unfilled airtime; however, quantity does not always equate to quality.

Some questions for politicians are asked as if Russia were not monitoring every word for intelligence and propaganda purposes. Sometimes there is inappropriate reporting. It is true that an individual’s experience or an image brings us the human face of war but sometimes a line is crossed. Do we really need to see a microphone thrust into the distressed face of someone who is desperately trying to board a train and hear them asked, “How are you feeling?” It makes me uncomfortable.

Real-time reporting requires not only professional judgment but empathy. It also requires that such reporters do his or her own editing. It requires that they see that line, recognise it and do not cross it. Most reporters, particularly senior reporters, have skills and experience that they gained in other dreadful conflicts, and it shows. I commend all who are out in the field and reporting against a background of sirens and explosions.

However, even some on-camera questioning in studios has been unnecessarily intrusive, verging on the tasteless and even asinine. This is not a soap opera, and we must not let it turn into one. This is not entertainment to fill the lines of communication—it is for real. I suppose that I am getting angry and other people are not, and I know that we each have our own red lines, but I feel at times that such reporting crosses a line.

That said, it is in times of international crisis, such as the misery and murder in Ukraine, that our public broadcasting is most valued. I commend it, and I would make it clear that I wish not for editorial censorship but for editorial sensitivity.

Above all, I am glad that I am able to offer these public criticisms for consideration, because I live in a democracy. Minute by minute, the Ukrainians are fighting desperately to retain one.