Seòmar agus comataidhean

I am afraid that the member has chosen to have a very short debate about what she calls an emergency, so I am going to continue.

The Scottish Government has introduced a 21.5 per cent increase in the independent living fund, which provides crucial support to disabled persons to enable them to live fulfilling and independent lives. The Government has increased the voluntary sector short breaks fund by 62.5 per cent to £13 million, giving short-break support for adults and young carers. It is expanding hospital at home services. We have free personal care and no prescription charges, neither of which is available in England. That is all preventative spend—and I should also point out that there is no resident doctors strike here.

Against that, we have Westminster’s hostile approach to immigration, which, as has been mentioned already, could spell disaster for Scotland’s care sector. According to Scottish Care’s latest workforce survey, from May 2025, international staff make up at least 26 per cent of the current care workforce, and international workers make up more than 90 per cent of the workforce at some organisations. More than 6,800 of those workers are on visas, and they would be directly affected by proposed changes to UK immigration policy by the current Labour Government.

It is all about funding, migration and the economy, and nobody on the Opposition benches wants to attribute any of those issues to the difficulties facing the public sector throughout Scotland and in other parts of the UK.

I am in my last minute.

The international staff I have referred to are not just filling labour gaps—they are the backbone of care in many communities in Scotland.

All these issues have been neatly dodged by Dame Jackie Baillie. I will quote my favourite man, Wes Streeting, who himself has said that

“all roads … lead back to Westminster”.

He has also said that

“The NHS is in crisis”

and that the

“decisions that are taken in Westminster don’t just affect England, but Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.”

I could not say it better myself.

I congratulate my colleague on securing this debate on what can be a taboo issue: grief and bereavement, which are two sides of the same coin.

Grief can be immediate; it can be there even when your loved one is still alive, in the last, sometimes painful, days, or even weeks, of life—bereavement can begin even then. Of course, at funerals, memorials, anniversaries, Christmas and new year, grief can be anticipated, but it can pop up even years later; a certain melody, or the scent of a flower and, out of the blue, you are heavy with sadness. These days, those we have lost are immortalised in our social media, and that is also tough.

It is wrong for someone to say, “It’s been nearly a year—you’d think they’d have moved on.” Some do; others do not. Some drink their way out of grief—that does not usually work. Some throw themselves into work or projects. Sometimes that works, but sometimes it is grief deferred. The loss of a child through an accident can bring parents together, but it can also tear a relationship apart. With the suicide of a loved one, there is guilt. There is no script, and no road map that will suit everyone. That is where individual bereavement counselling services come in, and I will refer to two such services.

It was humbling to view the “Lothians speak their name” quilt memorial in Parliament. The quilt was hand-crafted, to remember loved ones who took their own lives, by a group of 49 friends and family members. I heard about how those who helped to create that beautiful memorial found strength in the new community that they had formed. Sitting together chatting, just incidentally, led to starting conversations about the loved one they had lost to suicide and about mental health, their own wellbeing and how to cope—sharing with others in the same boat as themselves. The quilt tours the Lothians, helping to start conversations about mental health and suicide, in the hope that it will help those who have lost a loved one and perhaps also save lives.

Recently, it was my privilege to meet two Borders widows who are members of the Scottish Borders widowed community, which is a peer-to-peer support group that offers long-term compassionate support to men and women across the Borders who have lost a partner. As the only group of its kind in the region, it provides a much-needed space for people to connect with others who truly understand what it means to be widowed. The group meets monthly in person in Galashiels, with on-going private online support available at any time, including on difficult days such as anniversaries or in those moments of grief that arise quite unexpectedly.

Members also organise social activities such as walks, cinema outings and coffee meet-ups—simple but powerful opportunities to find connection and presence amid profound loss. The group is entirely volunteer run, and all members of the team are themselves widowed. Over the past three years, the group has grown to nearly 480 members, offering a lifeline to many who are facing isolation and continual heartbreak. Its approach is centred on providing sustained support over the long term, not just in the immediate aftermath of bereavement.

One of the group’s aims is to encourage more open conversations about death, not just emotionally but in practical and mental terms, with an emphasis on preparedness and reducing the silence that often surrounds grief and loss. The group’s motto is “Life grows around your grief”. That is a kind and compassionate thought. Although it is a difficult path, with steps forward and many steps back, those organisations and others help to keep folk on a forward path.

I would like to give the debate some context, of which members will be well aware.

Covid still casts a long shadow over health and social care services—that is true across the UK. It has not only caused delay; there is no doubt that, because of the restrictions during the pandemic, some people found their health deteriorating even more. That has brought additional pressures on the NHS and care sector. Of course, we must add to that our increasingly ageing population, of which I am one.

Much of that can be attributed to the UK’s economic climate. Funding has been mentioned, so I will talk about that. We have had the continuation of decades of austerity, exacerbated by the damaging actions of Liz Truss; we have had continuing inflation of food and energy costs; and we have had the financial impact of increased employer national insurance contributions. All of those have affected the health, care and voluntary sectors, including hospices. Finally, we have Brexit, and now damaging migration policies. All those things are at the hands of Westminster.

The national insurance increases are costing the NHS £191 million each and every year for its directly employed staff, and a further estimated £40 million for contracted services such as GPs, dentists, optometrists and pharmacists. We are seeing an additional recurring burden of £84 million to the care sector and £75 million to the voluntary sector year on year. No wonder hospitals are under threat.

I agree with what the minister has said about the loss of a baby or a child, and I am pleased to say that we now recognise that there is a lot of grief attached to miscarriages, which used to be talked about as something natural—of course they are not—and that we support people through miscarriages and their grief for their loss.

Will the member take an intervention?

On a point of order, Deputy Presiding Officer.

I congratulate Pam Duncan-Glancy on securing this debate. To put it mildly, she knows far more than I do of the difficulties of those with physical disabilities, although she never lets her circumstances impinge on her contributions. She is clever, articulate and a fearsome parliamentary adversary—but enough of that praise.

Disabilities take many forms. We had a debate last week on Tourette syndrome, which is a much misunderstood disability. We have had members with hearing impairments and we had Dennis Robertson, who was blind. This place of work has tried to provide facilities to suit those individual needs, but, even here, the arrangements for accessing spaces in a wheelchair or, in my case, a mobility scooter needs improvement. People cannot travel from the public area to the garden lobby without accompaniment and the use of a lift. Doors have to be held open by someone else and the lift is small and hidden. I have to say, however, that I have followed Pam Duncan-Glancy, who has exposed hidden accessible routes, which I now use.

I say “now” because, until fairly recently, I would not admit to being in a minor way disabled. My disability is minor, but it has opened my eyes to what others have had to accept in how they access places and transport. Some people have been kind, some experiences have been annoying and some experiences have been, frankly, hilarious—at least, that was the best way to react. My mobility scooter is now regularly seen as I navigate the Parliament. However, in a world in which a mobile phone has to be scanned all the time, I find myself having to shout all the time to clear a pathway, because my horn is sadly pathetic.

Recently, when I was out with my walking stick, I found that I had to step aside to let others pass, not the other way round, even though, as is the case for others, pain is always my unwelcome companion. That lack of consideration makes me angry.

I will talk about annoyances, such as having to rely on others to, for example, simply pass through entrances. Doors here and elsewhere in public areas should open easily and comfortably for those with mobility aids. Lift doors should be timed to stay open long enough to allow people with mobility issues to enter safely. Able-bodied folk filling lifts when there is no need for them to do so, leaving disabled people to wait, is simply wrong.

The experience of being an assisted passenger at railways and airports is also annoying. Waverley station is a mixed bag. On one occasion, my assistance, which had been booked, did not make an appearance, but I managed to capture a member of staff to help me to my distant carriage. Edinburgh airport has an assisted passenger desk, but that is well away from the entrance, so people have to struggle to it before they are allocated the most basic sort of wheelchair, which feels as if it and its user will part company quite easily. At the gates, the assisted passenger must wait conspicuously with others for their rickety transport to be placed on a lorry-like platform, which raises them up like a wheelie bin on to an even more rickety vehicle, which then deposits them on the plane.

At the end of the flight, they are, of course, the last to come off. At Halifax airport in Nova Scotia, I was offloaded and abandoned for some time, waiting for some poor soul to locate me and deposit me at customs. It is all a bit rough and ready and undignified, unless one is prepared to see the funny side of it. My walking stick was suspiciously and scrupulously examined at customs in Canada on account of its having a place for a light at the end. The whole shebang took so long that my poor family—complete with “Welcome, Granny Scotland” banners—had to wait 45 minutes before I appeared, now with walking stick, to an all-but-empty airport foyer.

However, there are kind people who offer help, even if someone is trying to do something for themselves, such as getting luggage on to the rack. On balance, in my case, such actions have, so far, outweighed the lack of consideration.

On accessibility, improvement is much needed, because, all too often, there are only stairs, which means that there is no access at all.

I thank the member for securing this debate. There are, of course, far more serious obstacles than those that I have met, but even having this recent but permanent taste of what is involved in simply getting from here to there while maintaining one’s dignity and, importantly, one’s individuality has been a lesson for this politician, and I am still learning.

I seek your guidance, Deputy Presiding Officer. Pam Gosal said that not one member of the SNP attended the vigil. I gave my apologies to her, and she accepted them and conveyed her thanks. I just thought that I should correct what was said.

As I have already said, this is not the first piece of retrospective legislation that we have had in the Parliament, and that previous legislation was not challenged.

The point that I am making is that Mr Kerr is challenging the Presiding Officer’s role. It is for the Presiding Officer to decide whether a bill as introduced is within the legislative competence of section 31 of the 1998 act. I would rather that the Presiding Officer made those judgments than a Government, because the Presiding Officer is objective and does it on behalf of the Parliament and its reputation. I would not want to find a Government of whatever hue making those decisions on my behalf.

I am taken aback that the amendment is even competent. However, I did not choose the amendments, as we know. In this process, it is the Presiding Officers who decide whether amendments are competent, so I am arguing with amendment 14 as lodged. I cannot see any advantage in supplanting the role of the Presiding Officer with a Government of whatever political hue.