Seòmar agus comataidhean

It is a privilege to speak in this debate, as I have in previous similar debates.

I have direct experience of members of the armed forces and their families through my engagement with Glencorse barracks, which is in my constituency. Just this week, I was back there for a visit with other MSPs, including Mr Sweeney. At one point, the barracks was threatened with closure by the MOD, but it has now been reprieved. Penicuikians very much support the barracks, which is integral to the community. The children of its personnel all attend local schools. The purpose of this week’s visit was generally to be briefed about the Army’s diverse and challenging role these days and its recruitment processes, but it also involved discussing—as it should—the pressures on personnel after returning home from a tour, the pressures on partners and families and the pressures after discharge.

I will give some context about the specific pressures on the armed forces. I spoke to one serving officer who began his service as a teenager in Northern Ireland and then had tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

When personnel return to a home where their partner has been running the household single-handedly for months, that brings challenges for both of them, which are compounded if there are young children who are unfamiliar with their returning parent, who perhaps bears the imprint of terrible sights and sounds, which have to be sanitised in our news bulletins. Indeed, I learned that there is a two-week decompression process, so that people who return from conflict, despite their desperation to go straight home, spend time adjusting before going back to domesticity.

That is even more relevant when people leave the structure of life in the forces for good. Yes—they are coming out with skills, and they have been part of a team and might have been a team leader. Some people might have skills, such as information technology and trades, that are immediately transferable to civvy life, but other people might need retraining. In addition, they have to organise basic aspects of everyday life, such as a GP and a home, that the armed forces have done for them over the years. As I have referenced, if they are in a relationship, they have to rebalance responsibilities with their partner. They are coming home every day or might be working from home. That must put pressures on relationships. They have to get acclimatised to general everyday civvy life. They must organise themselves when, as I have said previously, days and years were organised for them. They are also separated from formerly close-knit colleagues.

It is estimated there are more than 200,000 veterans in Scotland, and it is understood that a high percentage of them live in rural areas where, historically, families over generations joined various long-gone regiments, such as the King’s Own Scottish Borderers in the Borders.

Over the decades, the MOD has come a long way in recognising and acting on not just its duties as an employer but its fiduciary duty that extends—in my book—beyond those service years. This Parliament, too, has stepped in. We are aware that, although veterans are assets to our society, many require support, and a small proportion of them find the transition to civilian life more challenging. They are due the right support to ensure that they, too, are able to adapt, realise their potential and live full and successful lives in the community after service.

A small proportion of veterans find the transition too tough. According to Scottish Prison Service figures, in July this year, in Scottish jails, there were around 243 prisoners who had served in the armed forces. However, similar figures have never been collated for those who have been given sentences such as a community payback order, supervision or tagging. People with non-custodial sentences do not get the support that should be—and often is—offered to those in prison. Those veterans fall between metaphorical cracks.

I ask the minister to ask the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs to pursue the recording of that information on veterans who receive a criminal but not custodial sentence—not for its own sake, although that is useful, but to provide support there, too. The armed forces charity, SSAFA, has caseworkers who work with people who are serving community sentences, and Police Scotland has veterans champions at divisional level, but they need to know who and where those veterans are.

Finally, Lothians Veterans Centre in Dalkeith is a small independent charity that supports military veterans and their families. It offers a safe, relaxed and supportive environment, where like-minded people can share experiences and gain professional and peer support in a home-from-home setting, in order to break down barriers of social exclusion and promote comradeship. I have visited its drop-in centre in the centre of Dalkeith, which has a welcoming environment and can provide instant assistance, support and advice in relation to a wide range of services, including health and wellbeing, housing, employment, benefits, pensions, further education and training, access to health services, welfare, comradeship and activities. Veterans can also just drop in for a cup of tea and a chat. Most members of the centre’s professional team have served in—or are, in some way, connected with—the armed forces, so they possess a wealth of experience and offer an empathetic approach to supporting veterans and their family members, in order to make their transition from military to civilian life easier. I commend Lothians Veterans Centre and direct veterans to its website and that of SSAFA.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will commission independent analysis of the impact that its interventions, including the Scottish child payment, carers allowance supplement and the baby box, have had on social justice. (S6O-02605)

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s annual “Poverty in Scotland” report, which was published this week, highlighted the significant impact that the increased Scottish child payment is likely to have had on child poverty levels. I thank the cabinet secretary for her answer and ask her how I can access that data, which would be useful in showing the impact that not just the Scottish child payment but all the Scottish Government’s interventions are having on child poverty.

Just to make it clear, I am a pacifist, but that does not make me anti-Army. I want to put that on the record. I support the Army. I am anti-war, which is a very different matter.

Will the member take an intervention?

I cannot speak on behalf of it, but I am a member of the SPCB. However, before I make my point, I must say that I have found this an emotional speech to listen to, and I commend you from my heart, Edward, for speaking in that way and for bringing the issue to the chamber.

As a member of the SPCB, I can say that I have listened to what you have said, and we will have something done about it.

In the interests of harmony, I had better discuss that matter with Jackson Carlaw and the rest of the corporate body. However, I think that, collectively, we can address it. I am glad that Gordon MacDonald brought up the issue of shelves, too, because they would be useful to many people who use the disabled toilets, not just those with stoma bags. I want to put that on the record, so that Jackson Carlaw and I will speak to each other afterwards.

I was going to ask you to be spontaneous and take some interventions—

I am struggling with technology again—hang on a second. I beg your pardon.

I was there on 13 May 1999, at the inaugural sitting of the recalled Scottish Parliament, and I can quote the Presiding Officer, which I think will entertain you. He said:

“One of the worst habits of the House of Commons in the past decade has been the bogus use of points of order. I propose to be very strict; points of argument are not points of order. Points of order are for the occupant of the chair; if we degenerate into the habit of using them as points of argument, we shall develop some of the worst habits of a place that some of us have been glad to leave.”—[Official Report, 13 May 1999; c 16.]

I understand that Mr Kerr, who was as entertaining as usual, has just such plans to use the bad habits that he brought here with him.

I thought I would pop that quote into the debate to remind members, most of whom were not here in 1999, that bad habits can develop to epidemic proportions. We also thought then—naively—that, at the very least, devolution was secure, if not “a process”. In my 24 years’ experience here, I have never known a time when devolution and this Parliament’s democratic powers were under such overt attack.

In those early days, the Lib-Lab coalition proceeded hand-in-hand with Labour at Westminster. That was before the UK banking collapse of 2008, so there was ease of policy collaboration and funding between Westminster and the then Executive.

Indeed, while I support the constructive amendment referred to by Labour, I suspect that that would always be on Westminster’s terms—a kind of “take it or leave it” deal.

It was apparent in 1999 that Labour, in particular, but the unionists in general thought that it would always be the case that they would be in charge and that, even if the SNP did well, it would never be in power. The 2007 election changed all of that, and there has been a story ever since of tensions between devolved and reserved, with Westminster holding the purse strings. Of course, power devolved is power retained—a statement that is attributed to the late Tory MP Enoch Powell. That is a truism, and we are now learning that bitter lesson daily.

By the way, I ask Willie Rennie why, if the Liberals and, indeed, Labour are so opposed to the House of Lords, so many failed Labour and Liberal MPs and MSPs are happily sitting there.

Devolution statutes have increased our powers. The devolution of planning under the Scotland Act 1998 was, of course, a mega-oversight on the part of Westminster. The SNP Government can block—for the time being—the erection of nuclear power stations, although not the licensing of oil and gas developments at sea.

However, the Conservatives have never been happy with any of that. If they cannot exercise power through the ballot box, they have to find alternatives, so we have no section 30 order, thank you very much, even if an overall majority of MSPs stand on and for an independence referendum.

Once again, I turn to the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020—the orphaned child of the European Union and its internal markets act. It has proved an excellent unionist tool for prising open devolution. It has blocked the deposit return scheme and it can block the banning of the sale of glue traps, snares and shock collars. In fact, its blocking powers are wide ranging. If someone sells goods or provides services across the UK, the UK internal market act ensures that they can continue to do so. The leave of the UK is required if we wish to vary something. Would minimum unit pricing of alcohol have passed here if we had had the internal market act? I doubt it.

However, I am getting ahead of myself. Scotland voted 62 per cent remain in the 2016 EU referendum, yet the referendum’s consequences go beyond the all-invasive, indeed pernicious, internal markets act. Money that flowed from the EU to the Scottish Government for devolved projects is now filtered through the Westminster Conservative Government, which determines its destination. Under cover of “levelling up”, devolution is bypassed and areas that are favoured by the Tories, such as Dumfries, strangely find themselves being recipients, with projects being union badged and so on. You see, if you can’t beat them at the ballot box, try buying votes or, as Donald Cameron would say, investing directly—

Will the member give way?