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It is unfortunate that you are taking this opportunity to attack the health service—

It is unfortunate that the member is taking this opportunity to attack the health service rather than, just for once, congratulating the unit at the BGH on something that it is delivering. You were doing so well until then, but you have disappointed me entirely.

I congratulate Clare Adamson on securing the debate and on her long-standing commitment to the issue.

In my constituency, we have many inland waterways, which historically powered local industries. In the Borders, the River Tweed and Gala Water turned the looms in the knitting and weaving sheds; in Penicuik, the River Esk powered the paper mill; and the reservoirs in the Pentlands keep the water on tap in the city.

Those industries are long gone, but the rivers and waterways flow on, put to other uses, often leisure. However, they are not always benign and are often more lethal in the sleepy summer months. Like reservoirs, the river waters can be bitterly cold when the sun blazes on.

Four people died from accidents in water in the Scottish Borders in 2021, including 15-year-old Ellice Murray from Kelso, who died while kayaking with her dad and brother in the River Tweed, and 19-year-old Jack Reid, who died after getting into difficulty in the River Tweed near Innerleithen.

No water fatalities were reported in 2022 in the Scottish Borders. Following the tragic deaths in 2021, the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service ran a water safety initiative centred around the River Tweed to educate the public. Flyers giving advice on water safety were posted at more than 40 locally known areas for swimming and other water-based activities. A water safety event was held at the River Tweed in Kelso, where water rescue teams performed live rescue scenarios in front of the public, highlighting the importance of their actions should they get into difficulty in the water and, in addition, what they can do to help others, including how to deploy lifebelts.

Another aid is learning to swim and to swim safely. I am pleased to say that the new Galashiels academy will have a swimming pool, as will the replacement Beeslack secondary school in Penicuik. Both Peebles and Penicuik high schools already have access to swimming pools nearby.

However, learning to swim is only one of the safety measures to take for prevention. As I have indicated, inland waters in particular can be pretty risky. I speak from experience, as I had to instil water safety into my two young sons at the earliest of ages. We lived in a cottage in Minnigaff, in Galloway, where the sunny back garden ran down to meet two rivers: the Penkiln and, beyond that, the River Cree. Beyond that was the lade that had powered a mill.

I knew that to forbid my sons from going near the rivers would make them even more attractive, so, day in, day out, we walked along the banks with Roostie, our Irish setter, to observe the rivers in their seasonal moods. With their friends, they would play in the Penkiln in the summer holidays, building a dam to make a pool large enough to swim in. I dipped my toe in, so I can testify that the water was icy cold—incidentally, good for cooling an evening libation of chardonnay. The boys were immune to the temperature. Over the summer months, the river would run so low that the dorsal fins of the trout would rise above the water mark.

So it was, on a hot summer’s day while I was pottering about in the kitchen, that Angus, my eldest son, came running in to tell me that the Penkiln was in spate. I looked down the garden, but, because of the banking, I could not see the river below, and I quickly dismissed what he had said. Above, the sky was a blistering blue, with not a cloud to be seen. However, something niggled me, so I changed tack, took to my heels and ran down the garden and, sure enough, although the Cree beyond was hardly moving save for the floating river weeds, the Penkiln was a muddy torrent. A sudden and distant thunderstorm in the hills was all it took to sweep away their dam and tear lumps out of the river bank. Any child who was unaware of the things of the river could have been caught up in it, with little chance of survival. I hope that, in part, it was my lessons that paid off.

This is not a party-political point, because it relates to a Tory-led council in the Borders and a Scottish National Party-led council in Midlothian. As I said in my speech, I commend both of those councils for making pools an integral part when they commission new schools and replacements, if there is not one there already.

I very much welcome the Scottish Government’s investment in the great tapestry of Scotland in Galashiels.

Is the minister aware that former Galashiels weaver Robert Coltart was the author of perhaps a world-first advertising jingle, “Ally Bally Bee”, to sell his Coulter’s candy? No singing, please. Would the Scottish Government be supportive—I am not seeking cash, so the minister can relax—of a small and humble museum dedicated to that intriguing and mischievous man, perhaps near where we already have an excellent statue of him, in Galashiels?

To ask the Scottish Government what support it has provided to cultural activities in the Midlothian South, Tweeddale and Lauderdale constituency. (S6O-02428)

The Conservative and Labour amendments allude to or promulgate the proposition that a written constitution is an abstract that displaces the real and current issues for the people of Scotland such as the economy, the cost of living crisis, free access to healthcare at the point of need, a warm affordable home, a decent living wage, the right to withdraw labour, the right to be free of weapons of mass destruction and the ability to provide a sanctuary to those who are fleeing from persecution. A written constitution is the framework and foundation of a just society in which human rights, the rights of our children, the rights of the vulnerable, the rights that I have just referred to and—I say to Willie Rennie, who is not here—the rights of my constituents are fundamental and protected. It is a contract with the people, who are sovereign and have remained so despite the union in 1707. In 1953, MacCormick v Lord Advocate, session case 396, on appeal to the Inner House, Lord President Cooper, obiter dictum, said that

“The principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle”,

and this was restated in the claim of right, which was signed on 30 March 1989 and said:

“We, gathered as the Scottish Constitutional Convention, do hereby acknowledge the sovereign right of the Scottish people to determine the form of Government best suited to their needs, and do hereby declare and pledge that in all our actions and deliberations their interests shall be paramount.”

Yet the UK Parliament has placed what is, to all intents and purposes, a permanent veto on the Scots exercising their sovereign right through a referendum.

I remind the unionists in here that, in 2014, the Scottish people were told that, if they voted yes to independence, they would be thrown out of the EU. We voted 62 per cent to remain and we were dragged out against our will.

Given that there is no written UK constitution, Westminster has free rein to undermine and even erode basic human rights, especially those of the vulnerable: the rape clause; the bedroom tax; providing a haven in Scotland for nuclear weapons; and, for those seeking sanctuary, the irony, given its imperial past, of a reverse slave trade, involving paying for the shipping of desperate migrants to Rwanda, whose own breach of human rights the UK has questioned. We, in this Parliament, find that our protection of those rights is restricted and is being eroded in the context not only of a majority of members whose parties’ manifestos are committed to an independent Scotland but of a majority of Scottish MPs: 45 SNP to six Tory, one Labour and four Liberal Democrat.

Independence with a written constitution would mean that no Scottish Parliament could unilaterally remove or amend the rights of the Scottish people that were embedded in that constitution. To do so would require the consent of the people, who are sovereign. That is not what the Westminster Parliament does, day in and day out. Such a constitution would be pragmatic in its implementation, giving rights and remedies to the people of Scotland should any Scottish Government default. Those rights are the stuff of fact, not fiction.

To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on whether childminding development officers have a significant role to play in supporting and assisting childminders in their professional development. (S6O-02420)

I thank the minister for her answer and I share her views on the valuable contribution of childminders.

I refer to written answer S6W-19156, dated 21 June this year, which advises that the Scottish Borders have a childminding development officer contracted through the Scottish Childminding Association to Scottish Borders Council. Unfortunately, local childminders have advised me that the position is not to be renewed and that causes them and me concern. Does the minister agree?

The SPCB provides a school engagement programme through its public engagement services office. We offer schools free sessions and tours at the Parliament. Understandably, Covid changed things for schools and our service. We now have a digital schools service, as well as having restarted our team that visits schools across Scotland. Those services are popular and are especially appreciated by those who do not want to travel to Edinburgh or who, for a number of reasons, find coming to Edinburgh to be too challenging.

Across our services, we have reached schools in 69 out of 73 constituencies, and we are continuing to improve ways of maximising our engagement with schools. Children and young people also visit the Parliament to take part in committee meetings, meet their MSPs and take part in our engaging events programme.