Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have heard from Opposition members the false claim that Scotland has the highest income tax in the UK. In fact, most here pay less than in England, and the same is true of council tax, which is some 30 per cent lower here.

I congratulate the member on securing the debate.

These days, issues with our mental health or wellbeing are recognised as having a status and significance equivalent to that of physical illnesses. Of course, that was not always the case. I am referring not to the bad old days of asylums, which were not so long ago, but to the general acceptance now that it is no longer a weakness or an embarrassment for someone to admit or recognise that their mental health is not in a good place. That change will have contributed to more people identifying as having mental health issues.

The Covid-19 pandemic must also have exacerbated mental health issues for many people, perhaps as a result of isolation, illness, the loss of a loved one or financial worries, or a combination of any of those. For the young, there are the pressures of social media. How do your looks conform to fashion? Are you too fat? Bullying follows you into your bedroom, and is at your fingertips in the ever-present social media.

For the single parent, there are money worries; for the pensioner, there are money pressures, loneliness, failing health and mobility limitations, with family perhaps far removed or even estranged. Those are just some examples.

So, how to cope and where to find support? I accept that there are huge pressures on those across all age ranges, for which I do not have solutions. However, there are well-known agencies such as Citizens Advice Scotland, for debt support; bereavement services that are run by the national health service and Samaritans Scotland; and more localised help, too. For example, I did not previously know about the Scottish Borders widowed community, which is a peer support group for men and women in the Borders who have lost a partner. It offers a mix of private online discussions, in-person meetings of the widows hope group in Galashiels and social activities, giving widowed people a chance to give and receive support through their grief in a trusted safe space as well as making friends and combating social isolation and loneliness.

The Scottish Borders widowed community has been described by its members as a lifeline, being the only group in the area that is exclusively for widowed people. One said:

“I joined the group in 2023, five weeks after I lost my husband Sean. Losing Sean so suddenly and unexpectedly was devastating to me, but the Scottish Borders widowed community gave me hope for the future and brought me so much joy.”

Being widowed is very different from other losses and is widely recognised as one of the most traumatising and stressful life events. Having access to that type of support locally is, therefore, crucial to the health and wellbeing of the community’s members.

There is also an online service called Togetherall for residents in the Borders aged 16 and over, which provides an anonymous peer forum offering self-assessment for anxiety and depression. There is a 24-hour service for online chat, with wellbeing advisers to support people to maintain their mental health and wellbeing.

There are what matters hubs offering drop-in sessions across the Borders. Looking across to the other part of my constituency, there are men’s sheds—we are all aware of those. For example, there is one in Penicuik that brings men together to chat, taking them away from their isolation once they are no longer working in teams. They make useful items—for example, they have made a bench and bird table for Broomhill day centre, which in turn provides support to keep elderly people away from loneliness and isolation by providing not just lunches but company and a chat.

There is the Kellock club at North Kirk church in Penicuik—that is not easy to say—where men meet for an afternoon tea and chat. They often have a speaker; I was one such at their inaugural meeting. I introduced myself with the words, “Is this where the speed dating takes place?” It more than broke the ice, but disappointingly I am still unattached—I will leave it at that.

There are many more examples of support for those who are suffering. For example, as I know members will be aware, there are groups providing support for baby loss, suicidal thoughts and drug and alcohol addictions. I know of many such groups across the Borders—there are too many to mention, but I know who they are and I thank them, as they do much to help people through the mental stresses that they meet in today’s modern world.

My intervention is not relevant to what the minister has just said, but I want to give a plug for Trellis Scotland, which I failed to mention. It offers therapeutic gardening and horticulture for children and adults. Unlike Brian Whittle, I do not have running shoes, but I have a fork and a spade.

Will the minister take an intervention?

My point is linked to curriculum for excellence. We have been talking about how important it is for young children to understand the environment and sustainability; there are children who will not engage in the classroom in the same way as others, but, once they get outside into a garden and planting things, they begin to engage with life around them and to express themselves, speak and become confident. The programme is, therefore, a winner all round.

I thank all the members who signed my motion, allowing this debate to proceed, and the members who have stayed behind to contribute to it.

Although the motion refers to St Andrew’s RC primary school in Gorebridge, we will all have examples that show how important eco-schools and green flag schools are in Scotland. It is the young who will inherit Scotland and this precious planet that is so at risk from the activities of previous generations.

Eco-Schools is one of five international programmes operated by the Foundation for Environmental Education and it is delivered in Scotland by Keep Scotland Beautiful. It is the largest sustainable schools programme in the world, with 19.5 million children, young people and educators engaged worldwide in 74 different countries.

The green flag award is a visible indication of a school’s commitment to learning for sustainability; it is an internationally recognised accreditation for excellence in sustainable education.

The Scottish Government funds and promotes Eco-Schools Scotland as part of its education and sustainability strategy and is seen as a leader in the Eco-Schools initiative.

St Andrew’s RC primary school previously earned the green flag award through the Eco-Schools programme. This year, it has established an eco squad comprising students from the nursery up to primary 6 and primary 7, under the auspices of class teacher Mrs Valentine. The students are focusing on two key areas. The first is caring for the earth—for example, by using donated trees to regenerate existing woodland in the school grounds, creating a dedicated outdoor learning space. The second is supporting the less fortunate, which they are doing by collecting and cleaning crisp packets, which are then sent to a homeless charity, where they are repurposed into blankets for those who are in need. I have no idea how to repurpose a crisp packet into a blanket, but I will need to find out. I have not googled it; maybe the information is there.

Earlier this year, in partnership with the garden for life forum, nursery and school pupils aged three to 18 were invited to design a miniature, pocket-sized garden. Those provide food for people, they are good for wildlife and they reuse something. More than 130 entries from 18 local authority areas were submitted. They represented the work of whole classes and schools, they all demonstrated fantastic imagination and they were creatively linked to the 2025 theme, “our heritage, our future”.

The designers of the 32 winning entries have now been invited to build and grow their garden at their schools before filming or photographing it to be displayed as part of an online garden showcase in June, where people will be able to vote for their favourite garden. The winning designs will be turned into real mini-gardens.

Adding to the green flag award, which I mentioned, two Midlothian schools have been selected to enter the competition to design the perfect pocket garden—schools have to get selected to enter the competition; they cannot just go in it. Those schools are St David’s RC primary school in Dalkeith and St Andrew’s RC primary school in Gorebridge. The St Andrew’s design was called “Our heritage mining garden”, because Gorebridge has a huge mining history. St Andrew’s also won a certificate of recognition in the 2023 competition.

The competition links to Eco-Schools Scotland’s work on food and the environment, biodiversity, school grounds, climate action, health and wellbeing and the new heritage topic. Participation in the pocket garden competition can be part of their green flag application.

Winners will be invited to display their pocket garden in the online showcase—not in their pockets; they are not that small—so that people across Scotland can enjoy them and vote for their favourite three. Previous pocket gardens have been displayed at the “Gardening Scotland” fair in Edinburgh, where they have been visited by the BBC “Beechgrove Garden” team and the Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform. All winners will also be judged for three discretionary awards: interpretation of the themes, wildlife friendly and food for people.

The garden needs to be ready to be photographed in the week beginning 26 May 2025, when it should look at its best. It should be grown without using pesticides and fungicides, be peat free and use renewable materials. The gardens are truly pocket sized, with a rectangular footprint of 120cm by 100cm or, in old money—which I need to talk in—3 feet by 11 feet. That really is a pocket-sized garden. They can be any shape and any material can be reused to create them. It is really imaginative. I might have a go—although not in the competition, as that would be unfair. What a challenge it would be for us to try it.

I look forward to seeing the imaginative entries that engage children, not just to keep Scotland beautiful—which it is—but to contribute to the sustainability of the planet.

Good luck to St Andrew’s and St David’s. I hope that you will give them your votes.

I just wanted to let members know that I have now googled the question about blankets, as I perhaps should have done before the debate. The search result says that

“empty crisp packets can be repurposed into survival blankets by fusing them together using heat, creating a reflective layer that helps keep people warm”.

There you are, Mr Hoy.

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with NHS Borders about extending the hospital at home provision throughout the Borders. (S6O-04593)

The cabinet secretary and I had a visit to see the successful hospital at home service in the Borders and the impact that it has had in freeing up hospital beds. As of May 2025, NHS Borders has created a virtual capacity of 20 beds. However, the availability of the service, which operates from the base at Borders general hospital near Melrose, is currently determined by its ability to travel safely and effectively to patients within the day. That means that those who wish to use the service in, for example, Tweeddale are excluded. Is there any way round that, for example, by using Hay Lodge hospital in Peebles as a local delivery centre?

I come to this debate from a slightly different angle. The war in Ukraine, the vagaries of a flood of Trump executive orders on tariffs, and, indeed, the folly of the UK coming out of the EU, despite Scotland voting to remain by 62 per cent, have all exposed the fragility of the UK economy, particularly UK manufacturing capacity. That flows from decades of successive UK Governments, at least from the 1960s onwards, slipping happily into an importing nation, at least of goods, and relying on being a service economy. That vulnerability will take major change at a UK level to undo.

I recall when the label on goods “Made in China” and “Made in Taiwan” provoked scorn and even laughter. The same goes for Skoda and Lada. We are not laughing now, are we? Practically every device that we use has Chinese components. As for Taiwan, which I visited many years ago, it is impressive. With so little in the way of natural resources and with the looming threat of China just across the water, it has invested in research and development with great success. To protect itself from patent theft, it invests just as heavily in legal protections and it licenses the production that flows from its patents.

Across my Borders and Midlothian constituency, the wool industry is now a shadow of its former self and most of the jobs have gone, although its products are of high quality. Coal mining in Newtongrange, Gorebridge and Penicuik are consigned to the museum and memorials. Penicuik’s famous paper-making site has been redeveloped into residential housing. Those industries all sustained entire communities.

Some of the change was the result of the natural evolution of the international manufacturing landscape, and I accept that. However, we—that is, the UK—missed the boat in anticipating modern manufacturing requirements. Take, for example, the many wind farm developments across my constituency and elsewhere. Which companies manufacture the turbines? I understand that the two main manufacturers are Vestas, which is an American company that is based in Portland, and Siemens Gamesa of Madrid, Spain.

Siemens Gamesa’s company history states:

“40 years ago, we saw limitless potential in wind, from powering factories to illuminating homes around the globe. Our technological leadership has accompanied us all these years, from our first wind turbines to our powerful offshore projects ... From the very first wind generators to the world’s largest wind farms.”

Forty years ago, the company saw limitless potential. What was the UK doing then?

That illustrates my point. The nine largest public owners of wind farms in Scotland are foreign. That includes the Danish wind company Ørsted, the Swedish power company Vattenfall, the Norwegian Statkraft and Munich’s municipal energy company. The UK Government does not own one. To rub salt into the wound, we have high energy costs domestically and commercially. In Norway, although 69 per cent of wind farms are owned by foreign companies, Norwegian companies at least own 31 per cent.

The UK Government failed Scotland in the 1960s and 1970s by selling off the oil and gas industry and failing to build from its oil and gas revenues something similar to the extraordinary Norwegian Government pension fund global, which now amounts to $1.7 trillion. Members will say that we are where we are. Indeed, but it is worth saying how we got where we are and whether lessons have been learned by the UK Government. After all, it has the economic power; that is not here. I would say that it has not learned lessons.

Support is needed, but let us be clear that the Scottish Government can only tinker at the edges. Given the huge constraints of devolution, we should not say otherwise.

I return to the example of Taiwan, from which we can learn to invest in and value research and development in our universities, as Gordon MacDonald referenced in his comments. We can also look to protect our produce with the “Made in Scotland” label, which has worldwide value. Those are just two areas where the Scottish Government can make fundamental interventions.

However, to be clear, it is successive UK Governments, with their substantial reserved powers, that have failed—as I hope that I have illustrated over the decades—to provide the UK, let alone Scotland, with an industrial strategy.