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A constituent received this text:

“NHS: You are now eligible to apply for your NHS COVID Pass. Failure to apply may result in a fine. Please apply for your COVID Pass via”.

There was then an address that was made to look like a national health service address.

My constituent had the good sense not to click on the link. However, since my office advised NHS Borders and the police of the text, there have been further instances. What is the Scottish Government doing to alert the public to this recent spate of scams?

My question is about booster jags. I appreciate that these are exceptions, but several elderly constituents of mine, some of whom are in the catchment area of NHS Lothian and some of whom are in the catchment area of NHS Borders, were unable to get through to the vaccination helpline. Those who did were told that the earliest date for their booster would be late December. I even have one Penicuik couple in their 80s who were given a date of 1 January 2022. Can that be right, given that younger age groups are being offered boosters now and can even book online?

To ask the First Minister what public advice the Scottish Government has issued regarding the discharge of fireworks, given that new regulations came into force on 30 June 2021. (S6F-00411)

I declare an interest as convener of the cross-party group on animal welfare and as the owner of Mr Smokey, a rescue cat.

The regulations limiting the sale and discharge of fireworks are much welcomed by animal welfare organisations and by pet owners—particularly those who are less experienced, having become an owner during Covid. The increasing use of fireworks previously made it impossible to keep animals safe, even indoors. Fireworks also affect livestock. All animals have more acute senses than we do, and fireworks cause them suffering, stress and anxiety. Too many farm animals come to harm or even die, so the regulations are also welcomed by the farming community.

Will the First Minister explain how the impact of the regulations will be monitored and what the maximum penalties are for breaching them?

Will the member take an intervention?

The minister said that, in correspondence, local bar associations said that the issue has more to do with wider unhappiness about legal aid fees in general. That was an issue 20 years ago, when I was in practice as a civil legal aid practitioner.

With reference to the proposed legal aid reform bill, may I make a plea for my former colleagues? Although I appreciate that the bulk of the bill will be about criminal legal aid and situations in which there is the risk of loss of liberty and a criminal record, the majority of disputes are civil disputes. I make a plea to the minister to consider the balance when it comes to civil legal aid.

I hope that I am no longer speaking to myself.

Years ago, when giving evidence to the then Health and Sport Committee, Harry Burns, the former chief medical officer for Scotland, said that inequality begins in the womb. That inequality can be addressed by taking on poverty and by education. In passing, therefore, let me praise the baby box, which every new parent may apply for. As a way of welcoming every newborn to Scotland, it is practical and educational. In its first three years, it was given to 144,000 homes, which is a 93 per cent uptake—a good start.

It is as plain as a pikestaff that, the earlier that society can start to support a child’s development in the broadest sense, the better. In my long-gone former days as a secondary school teacher in a small rural school that was adjacent to its primary, I would watch the primary school children from my window at playtime, and I could see which children were already struggling long before they crossed the threshold of my classroom. Indeed, entire families could be identified, generation after generation, as being already on an unequal and, frankly, failing path.

Among the other supports, which are too many to list fully in this short speech, the provision of free nursery care, which is now at 1,140 hours per year for all three-year-olds onwards, is excellent, extending almost threefold what the SNP Government inherited. It is to be applauded. That is not the end, however. In the current parliamentary session, wraparound childcare is to be extended to all school-age children before and after school, and free of charge to the poorest families.

I say to Fulton MacGregor that I have the privilege—I wonder whether it is a privilege—of being a granny and watching my youngest granddaughter benefit from nursery provision. I see the pictures of her out on woodland walks with her friends and the drawings that she brings home, and I hear her jumbled-up, excited account of the day’s events. It has given her confidence and social skills. The other day, she even passed me the cucumber slices before she dug into them herself. Mind you, she still has a little to learn—she passed them one by one and not in the dish. I have no doubt that that will come, but the sharing came about partly because of nursery. Her parents, who are now working from home, are finding it testing to do so with an energetic three-year-old scrambling about their feet and demanding attention, but they are lucky compared to the single parent who is stuck in a flat with no real access to outdoor space. For them, nursery provision is vital.

And we are not talking just about nursery provision. For those who qualify, we now have a national £120 minimum school clothing grant for primary school and a £150 clothing grant for secondary school. The stigma of being visibly poor can thereby be alleviated. Of course, in Penicuik, at Ladywood and elsewhere, there is a supply of preloved local school uniforms. There is also now an after-school club, school’s out, which was first provided in Peebles and has now been extended to Penicuik. Add to that the free school meals for P1 to P4 pupils, and we, as a society, are on the right track. Children cannot learn on an empty stomach.

The SNP is—as, I hope, we all are in Parliament—determined that every child, regardless of their circumstances, should get the best start in life. The ambition of Scotland and of members of this Parliament, whichever side of the chamber we sit on, should be to make this the best place in the world to grow up in. With baby boxes, free nursery provision, free school meals and school clothing grants, there is so much to level up, to use a prevailing phrase for which certain members of the Opposition have a fondness.

As Willie Rennie is well aware, the decision on the business for the day is a matter for the Parliamentary Bureau. I appreciate that the Liberal Democrats are not on it any more, but business is a matter for the bureau, rather than the Government.

My apologies, Presiding Officer. I was talking to myself, actually.

Presiding Officer, I am afraid that I have had to move seats because my microphone did not appear to be working.

The River Tweed and its tributaries that flow through my constituency lead to Tweed Green, in Peebles, which is always vulnerable to flooding. Will the Deputy First Minister advise Parliament of the effectiveness of existing flood protection measures upstream to reduce the flow, such as on the Eddleston Water project?