Seòmar agus comataidhean

As we are all aware, the situation is very distressing and costly for students who come from red list countries. I put on the record my thanks to the universities for stepping in with practical help.

Of course I appreciate that CTM was tasked by Westminster, and I understand the relationship with the Scottish Government’s international travel co-ordination team, which liaises with the CTM Westminster arm. Has there been any positive response? Are we any further forward for students who are anxious to start their courses?

I thank the members who supported my motion.

I commend the report by the United Kingdom Parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, whose unanimous cross-party report along with the pursuit of this injustice by my colleague Owen Thompson, the MP for Midlothian, brought me to the debate. I add to that the Scottish Government, which wrote to the UK Government supporting the recommendations of the report.

As Penicuik, Gorebridge and Newtongrange, which were once at the heart of coal mining, are in my constituency, and as my maternal grandfather was a Welsh miner who died prematurely from injuries sustained in the pit well before I was born, I have a deep interest in what happens to miners and mining communities. In the 1980s, I witnessed the mounted police charging into men who were fighting for their livelihoods and communities.

I will provide a bit of historical context to the pension arrangements. They were put in place in 1994, when the mines were privatised. Since then, the UK Government has benefited from 50 per cent of the surplus in the funds, to the extent that—this is key—without contributing a penny, it has received £3.1 billion, and, in addition, £1.3 billion from the investment reserve. There is a further £1.9 billion in the pipeline—I have never seen a billion, but that is a lot of money.

The committee held an inquiry and unanimously recommended that the 50:50 split should be reviewed and, as an interim measure, that £1.3 billion should be redistributed to the miners. That humongous sum contrasts with the actual pensions that miners receive. The median is £65 per week, so 50 per cent of members receive less than that, while 25 per cent receive less than £35 per week and 10 per cent receive less than £18 per week.

At the metaphorical coalface of life and paying for everyday bills, many miners are on the breadline, while thousands, like my mother’s father, have been injured and died not even having enjoyed their pensions. It is estimated that 7,000 members die each year. It was an inherently dangerous job that by its nature led to poor health, and that is now compounded by susceptibility to Covid because of those underlying health conditions.

Against all that, it is an affront to justice that the UK Government creams off billions of pounds and has responded to the report with a rejection of all its recommendations. What is the justification? It claims that the guarantee that the UK Government will plug any deficit if the scheme is vulnerable to failure is a reasonable defence. The reply from Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Westminster Minister of State for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change, was:

“The Government continues to believe that the arrangement agreed in 1994 was fair and beneficial to both Scheme members and taxpayers. Scheme members have rightly shared in the benefits but the Government has taken on all the risk.”

The reality is that, even through the 2008 financial crisis and to date, the fund has thrived, as the free billions are harvested by the UK Government. Where is the evidence of risk, if any? Is it commensurate with a 50:50 split? The previous schemes assigned the surpluses at 70:30 in favour of the miners—the beneficiaries.

The UK Government has a sad track record in its attitude towards the miners, which, as I referenced, started with the brutal treatment of decent folk who were defending their jobs and communities. Of course, that was compounded by the recent remarks of Boris Johnson, when he said:

“Thanks to Margaret Thatcher, who closed so many coal mines across the country, we had a big early start and we’re now moving rapidly away from coal altogether.”

Those were crass remarks, but they were in keeping with the disdain for the coal miners and their communities and are now compounded by the rejection of a review of the pension scheme. Irony of ironies, the Westminster Government is now, controversially, considering opening a fresh pit near Whitehaven, where it will, of course, need coal miners.

That contrasts with the approach of the Welsh Assembly and of the Scottish Government, which is providing a pardon for miners who were convicted in the 1984-85 strike action in Scotland and has written to the UK Government to support the Westminster committee’s recommendations.

Whether or not members have a mining community in their constituencies, I urge them to pursue that with their MP and to support the select committee, shame the Government at Westminster and make it, for once, do right by the miners by accepting the unanimous recommendations of the cross-party select committee. After all, the Westminster energy minister offered a chink of hope when, in a letter of reply to Owen Thompson MP, she said:

“I am unable to accept the conclusions and recommendations. ... However I hope that as a result of my discussions with the Trustees we can reach a mutually acceptable way forward”.

I suggest that people get writing. Let us hope that those are not just easy words but that there are actions to follow, before more miners fall into penury and others die before they receive their pensions.

I beg your pardon, Presiding Officer—I should not have used the “you” word.

Does the member agree with the findings of the select committee, which had Conservative representatives on it? I commend the resilience and toughness of select committees at Westminster.

Regulation would be in the interest of any non-statutory advocacy services that is provided. It makes people sure that they are certified in and regulated for what they do. What they say would have weight and value. I do not think that it was deliberate, but in this case a narrative was brought in that could never be undone.

Parental alienation it is not unusual when spirits and passions run high in relation to contact with or residence of children. The issue between the parents becomes something that spills over and affects the children. It should not, but it does.

Regulation would be in the interests of those services. I cannot see the problem. We are regulated and must obey rules, which is just as it should be. The same thing should happen to non-statutory advocacy services.

I thank the committee.

Let me put it on the line that I support advocacy services for children. However, that is not the issue. The petition is very narrow. As you have already suggested, convener, we have non-statutory child-advocacy services in court proceedings in relation to contact and residence, but what you have not read out is that I came to the issue through a case—as many of us do—which broadened the whole issue. I hope that members will forgive me if they already know about this. I will obviously keep the case anonymous, but the experience of the intervention of such a child advocacy service caused devastation to the lives of two of my constituents.

The intervention began because of a series of unfounded allegations made against the man, but the advocacy service soon became the driver of events that multiplied allegations without their validity ever being investigated. As I know from practising as a family lawyer 20 years ago, once children have been alienated, it is practically impossible to undo.

What is the backing for that? My constituents went to proof. In her judgement, the sheriff set out in detail the systematic creation by the child advocacy service of an entirely false narrative in the minds of the children. That included practising emergency evacuation drills with them, as if the father might attack them. The service also refused to accept its role in perpetuating and amplifying the falsehoods.

There may not be many cases, but one case is one too many. I note what the convener said about the response by the minister, Ash Denham. I see a reference to the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 (Children’s Advocacy Services) Regulations 2020, which came into force in November last year. Those regulations only set out requirements as to qualifications, training and fees. There is no requirement for regulation.

I also note the minister’s response, which you read out. She said that regulation would be difficult and would require primary legislation. I do not care about that. If something needs to be fixed, primary legislation is neither here nor there. The minister says that advocacy services

“are not only provided by organisations or persons acting in a professional capacity”—

one might call that a quasi-professional capacity—and that, in the event of regulation being implemented,

“consideration would need to be given as to how this would be enforced”

with persons supporting in the capacity of a relative. Relatives are a completely different species. They are not disinterested parties, and neither should they be, in any proceedings regarding children with whom they are connected. We are looking at non-statutory advocacy services, which are not currently regulated. My constituents did not see what had been said. They found out only by accident. By the time the stage of proof is reached, the damage is done. The comments by the sheriff are very telling.

This is a serious issue. You talked about how petitions have been used to move on the serious issue of mesh. I would like someone such as the cabinet secretary to answer to this. It can be fixed. Some people say that relatives cause an issue, but they do not. The constituent mentioned services. We do not talk about a relative providing services. Definition is all, in this case.

That is my position. You can see that it is heartfelt because I have been following this, with my constituents, for two years. I know the misery that it has brought to their lives and the impact that it has had on their children, with whom they now have no connection whatsoever, and probably never will have again. That should not happen.

I congratulate Brian Whittle on securing the debate and I congratulate all the UK athletes who took part in the Olympics, especially given the delay of a year when they had to keep training during Covid and lockdown, and be inventive in their training methods.

Pre-empting next week’s debate, of which I was unaware, I will focus my comments on the Paralympics. I acknowledge Brian Whittle’s commitment to increasing sport for all, although I would, as he knows, distinguish between sport and “activity”—a term that I prefer, being one of the many people who has no sport in my DNA.

I do not believe that the Olympics brings about any substantial cultural change, apart from for some people who may be inspired by Olympians to progress in their chosen sport. Rather like what we see with Wimbledon, when children are briefly seen out with tennis rackets, the change soon disappears. Activity is a different matter and for another debate.

It is, however, my view that the Paralympics does change, and has changed, society. For me, the London Olympics was the time when that sea change took place. The sight of people with disabilities—to use that broadest term—participating in all manner of sports, displaying not only their skills but in many cases their physical disabilities, has, I think, had a profound impact on the way that disability is viewed.

However, the Paralympics is not equal with the Olympics, as an event or for its participants, in many respects, a fundamental one of which is funding. In support of that point, I refer to a campaign by Paralympians David Weir, Jonnie Peacock and Hannah Cockroft. Those three top track stars have repeatedly raised issues of unequal pay, poor promotion and a lack of technical investment in the Tokyo games for Paralympians.

David Weir has said that he is

“sick of being second best”

and has challenged Sebastian Coe to a “fight” for the future of para-athletics. After finishing fifth in the Paralympic marathon, the Weirwolf, as he is called, let rip on the parlous state of his sport and now wants World Athletics, of which Coe is president, to intervene. Along with swimming, para-athletics is reluctantly governed by the International Paralympic Committee. I say that the committee is reluctant because, in July, it openly invited interest in taking the responsibility off its hands.

David Weir said, “we deserve more”, and went on:

“That is what I’m going to fight for now, I am going to keep pushing and knocking on the door.”

On a positive note, I, too, congratulate Samantha Kinghorn from Melrose on her success in winning a bronze medal in Tokyo in the T53 100m, finishing just a quarter of a second behind the winner—such are the narrow margins, as Mr Whittle knows. She has come a long way since her first competition in 2012 in the London mini-marathon. She has come an even longer way since her injuries in 2010, when she was crushed by snow and ice and broke her back. She had emergency surgery and spent five months in hospital, with the injury to her spine leaving her paralysed from the waist down. She has said:

“I thought I’d be in a bed forever. So, to then get into a wheelchair was amazing. I know it sounds strange, but I was so happy. Then to find I could actually compete in sport in my wheelchair has just been incredible. Sport has helped me hugely, helped me to accept it really.”

That story, along with the cultural change in the public perception of disabilities that has resulted from the Paralympics, is inspirational. For that reason, although I congratulate those involved in the Olympics, I certainly value the Paralympics more.

I noted what the First Minister said about the JCVI in her reply to Anas Sarwar, but can she share with the Parliament her preferred timetable for booster vaccines for the very vulnerable, the elderly, and health and care workers, for example, which must surely alleviate pressure on the NHS and reduce deaths?

Among the stakeholders that the minister mentioned, she did not mention the police. I know from my many years here that the police and SEPA worked together when commercial operators were undercutting the prices of reasonable and conventional environmental disposal people and were dumping poisonous waste wherever they liked. Would it be possible to include the police in the list of stakeholders?

I congratulate Rachael Hamilton, who represents a neighbouring constituency to the one that I represent, on securing this debate.

My constituency—Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale—encompasses the western side of the Borders, from the Eildon hills to the foothills of the Pentlands, so I am very familiar with the route of the river Tweed and its significance to the life and economy of the Borders over the centuries. It was undoubtedly a major route for early humans, it saw the great water wheels that drove the textile industry, and to this day it continues to be a great salmon river—all 97 miles of it.

The debate is not all about the Tweed, however. The river has many, diverse tributaries—watercourses that feed it, from where it rises, humbly, high up in Tweedsmuir, and along its path through to England and Berwick and the sea, via Peebles, Innerleithen, Galashiels and Melrose. The waterways that feed into it, such as Eddleston Water, Turfford Burn, at Earlston, Leithen Water, at Innerleithen, and Gala Water—obviously at Gala—to name but a few, are equally important in the cleaning process.

I cannot speak on the issue without first recognising, as other members have, the pivotal role of Tom Rawson, a teacher at St Mary’s School in Melrose and an indefatigable environmental activist. He has engaged riverside communities along the Tweed and its waterways in the clean-up, which is synchronised so that, on particular days, communities across the Borders are involved in their local clean-up, taking ownership of their waterway.

As others have said, more than 450 Borderers turned out to clean up the mess of the minority—a minority who are ignorant and uncaring about the damage to the environment, to wildlife and to the health of the river that they are fortunate enough to have navigating past their community. Twenty-two bags of litter were collected at the Turfford Burn at Earlston one Saturday. The clean-up at Eddleston is another example of one that extends to ensuring that natural debris is cleared. The Eddleston Water project has planted vegetation along the river’s path and has diverted it to make the water snake more in order to slow its path, which helps to reduce the prospect of flooding downstream, especially in Tweedgreen and Peebles, which has been all too common. As we know—it hardly needs to be said—flood prevention starts upstream.

Those who despoil our waterways, whether it is through plastic, debris or pesticides, should be held to account and prosecuted. They should be reported to the Scottish Environment Protection Agency or the council’s environmental department. No one should desist from reporting such people. It can be done discreetly.

I applaud the majority and, of course, the volunteers, including the biggest volunteer of all, Tom Rawson—the good guys. I thank them for protecting the Tweed and her varied waterways. We mortals are merely passing through, as generations of our predecessors have done before us. We are custodians of our environment. We should leave our rivers, including the River Tweed, and our waterways in a better condition than we found them—cleaner and clearer.