Seòmar agus comataidhean

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I could not connect either. I would have voted no.

My thanks go to Jackie Baillie for bringing this incredibly important debate to the chamber, and for recounting the experience of one of my constituents, Jean.

I fully expect that the Government will judge Jean’s experience to be “unacceptable” or “not what we want to see”—I do not think that it would disagree with that—but the sentiment is hollow when it is not followed by prompt remedial action. Perhaps that feeling of unacceptability will be wiped away by the notion that the issue is anecdotal or that it would not happen today. However, my office has been handling cases such as the one that Jackie Baillie highlighted for months and months. My constituents have been left in pain and panic, trying to get an ambulance to the same A and E departments that they share with the health secretary’s constituents.

The issue is not anecdotal—it is systemic. Time and again, I hear from constituents with a long list of praise for the health staff once they get there or when their family member has been seen. We simply must extend our appreciation to our emergency health staff who, day after day, go above and beyond the call of duty. It is only because of those countless extraordinary individuals that our emergency departments have lasted this long, and not one ounce of blame for the current mess should land at their feet.

Jean is not alone in having to wait 17 hours for an ambulance. I know that there are worse cases out there. She is also not alone in having to wait nine hours in the back of an ambulance outside A and E. I heard from a constituent who had three separate ambulance crews spend their whole shift waiting with them outside A and E.

In the past couple of weeks, I have heard about the inevitable escalation of the situation from another constituent who was suffering from the side effects of his diabetes. An ambulance was called for him, but it did not arrive for nine hours. By the time the paramedics arrived, he needed to be resuscitated. An ambulance had been dispatched after seven hours, but it had been diverted to someone in even more dire need.

It is inevitable that, without immediate and transformative change in our A and E departments, people will die. The health secretary must immediately look at the real situation on the ground, not his own press releases. He must heed Jackie Baillie’s warning and look at the statistics that bear out what we have seen in relation to issues such as acute hospital bed occupancy, so that we are working towards real improvement and real increases in the quality and pace of patient care.

The health secretary must also listen to the words of the chief executive of the Scottish Ambulance Service, who points to mismanagement and a lack of planning in our social care sector on the part of the Government working its way up the chain to our acute medicine settings, with potentially deadly results.

17:31

My thanks go to Jackie Baillie for bringing this incredibly important debate to the chamber, and for recounting the experience of one of my constituents, Jean.

I fully expect that the Government will judge Jean’s experience to be “unacceptable” or “not what we want to see”—I do not think that it would disagree with that—but the sentiment is hollow when it is not followed by prompt remedial action. Perhaps that feeling of unacceptability will be wiped away by the notion that the issue is anecdotal or that it would not happen today. However, my office has been handling cases such as the one that Jackie Baillie highlighted for months and months. My constituents have been left in pain and panic, trying to get an ambulance to the same A and E departments that they share with the health secretary’s constituents.

The issue is not anecdotal—it is systemic. Time and again, I hear from constituents with a long list of praise for the health staff once they get there or when their family member has been seen. We simply must extend our appreciation to our emergency health staff who, day after day, go above and beyond the call of duty. It is only because of those countless extraordinary individuals that our emergency departments have lasted this long, and not one ounce of blame for the current mess should land at their feet.

Jean is not alone in having to wait 17 hours for an ambulance. I know that there are worse cases out there. She is also not alone in having to wait nine hours in the back of an ambulance outside A and E. I heard from a constituent who had three separate ambulance crews spend their whole shift waiting with them outside A and E.

In the past couple of weeks, I have heard about the inevitable escalation of the situation from another constituent who was suffering from the side effects of his diabetes. An ambulance was called for him, but it did not arrive for nine hours. By the time the paramedics arrived, he needed to be resuscitated. An ambulance had been dispatched after seven hours, but it had been diverted to someone in even more dire need.

It is inevitable that, without immediate and transformative change in our A and E departments, people will die. The health secretary must immediately look at the real situation on the ground, not his own press releases. He must heed Jackie Baillie’s warning and look at the statistics that bear out what we have seen in relation to issues such as acute hospital bed occupancy, so that we are working towards real improvement and real increases in the quality and pace of patient care.

The health secretary must also listen to the words of the chief executive of the Scottish Ambulance Service, who points to mismanagement and a lack of planning in our social care sector on the part of the Government working its way up the chain to our acute medicine settings, with potentially deadly results.

17:31

My thanks go to Jackie Baillie for bringing this incredibly important debate to the chamber, and for recounting the experience of one of my constituents, Jean.

I fully expect that the Government will judge Jean’s experience to be “unacceptable” or “not what we want to see”—I do not think that it would disagree with that—but the sentiment is hollow when it is not followed by prompt remedial action. Perhaps that feeling of unacceptability will be wiped away by the notion that the issue is anecdotal or that it would not happen today. However, my office has been handling cases such as the one that Jackie Baillie highlighted for months and months. My constituents have been left in pain and panic, trying to get an ambulance to the same A and E departments that they share with the health secretary’s constituents.

The issue is not anecdotal—it is systemic. Time and again, I hear from constituents with a long list of praise for the health staff once they get there or when their family member has been seen. We simply must extend our appreciation to our emergency health staff who, day after day, go above and beyond the call of duty. It is only because of those countless extraordinary individuals that our emergency departments have lasted this long, and not one ounce of blame for the current mess should land at their feet.

Jean is not alone in having to wait 17 hours for an ambulance. I know that there are worse cases out there. She is also not alone in having to wait nine hours in the back of an ambulance outside A and E. I heard from a constituent who had three separate ambulance crews spend their whole shift waiting with them outside A and E.

In the past couple of weeks, I have heard about the inevitable escalation of the situation from another constituent who was suffering from the side effects of his diabetes. An ambulance was called for him, but it did not arrive for nine hours. By the time the paramedics arrived, he needed to be resuscitated. An ambulance had been dispatched after seven hours, but it had been diverted to someone in even more dire need.

It is inevitable that, without immediate and transformative change in our A and E departments, people will die. The health secretary must immediately look at the real situation on the ground, not his own press releases. He must heed Jackie Baillie’s warning and look at the statistics that bear out what we have seen in relation to issues such as acute hospital bed occupancy, so that we are working towards real improvement and real increases in the quality and pace of patient care.

The health secretary must also listen to the words of the chief executive of the Scottish Ambulance Service, who points to mismanagement and a lack of planning in our social care sector on the part of the Government working its way up the chain to our acute medicine settings, with potentially deadly results.

17:31

I thank Roz McCall for bringing the debate to the chamber.

Childcare is a matter dear to my heart. I am a grandpa, and my grandson is lucky that, as well as mum and dad, he has grannies and grandpas—and great-grannies and great-grandpas—to fill the gap from time to time. It is also a matter that comes up regularly in our caseloads.

The question at the heart of the motion is whether funded childcare can be a net contributor to the Scottish economy. Nobody questions whether free public education for all is a valuable or necessary step for our economy, and if that level of provision was adopted in early years childcare policy, perhaps we would not question that either. The career benefit to parents is hard to calculate, but, depending on the number of children that someone chooses to have, the lack of childcare provision in Scotland could cost them four, five or six years of their salary over their career, not to mention the detrimental effect on promotions and pension contributions.

We must be cognisant that the burden falls primarily on women now and in later life. There are long-term impacts of having a parent leave work. It is harder to save on one income, and as has been said people have to make conscious decisions when they are paying for kids. There is a strong correlation between someone, as a child, having a parent who was not in work and that person growing up and not being at work.

Expanding funded childcare—

I am sorry. Where were we?

There is a long-term impact when a parent has to leave work. It is harder to save on one income and non-working parents pay rent or mortgage interest for far longer than they would have done if they were working.

Childcare makes a big difference to ending generational poverty. I have a few cases from new mums in my inbox at present. Some can choose to go back to work, but if someone does not earn enough, they do not have a choice, because they just cannot afford childcare. They feel that the Government is playing a game of chicken with them. Sometimes they blink and pay the childcare costs themselves; sometimes they do not blink and leave their jobs for three, four or five years, which means that the Government loses the income tax that they would otherwise have paid during that time. According to Pregnant Then Screwed, the Scottish economy loses out 71 per cent of the time for mums and 51 per cent of the time for dads.

There is much more to say on the matter, including about the cognitive development of toddlers, who benefit from professional enrichment and from mixing with others. It is obvious that the most common response from parents is not to swallow the cost of childcare themselves or to decide not to work, but to choose not to have children. Scotland’s fertility rate should be 2.1, but it is 1.2 at the moment, which does not bode well for the future. We are stacking up problems and will be looking to fewer people to sustain an ever more costly welfare system in the future.

Many Governments are choosing to act on the issue, but Scotland is not one of them, which is an unfortunate and sad state of affairs.

13:16

::I thank Roz McCall for bringing the debate to the chamber.

Childcare is a matter dear to my heart. I am a grandpa, and my grandson is lucky that, as well as mum and dad, he has grannies and grandpas—and great-grannies and great-grandpas—to fill the gap from time to time. It is also a matter that comes up regularly in our caseloads.

The question at the heart of the motion is whether funded childcare can be a net contributor to the Scottish economy. Nobody questions whether free public education for all is a valuable or necessary step for our economy, and if that level of provision was adopted in early years childcare policy, perhaps we would not question that either. The career benefit to parents is hard to calculate, but, depending on the number of children that someone chooses to have, the lack of childcare provision in Scotland could cost them four, five or six years of their salary over their career, not to mention the detrimental effect on promotions and pension contributions.

We must be cognisant that the burden falls primarily on women now and in later life. There are long-term impacts of having a parent leave work. It is harder to save on one income, and as has been said people have to make conscious decisions when they are paying for kids. There is a strong correlation between someone, as a child, having a parent who was not in work and that person growing up and not being at work.

Expanding funded childcare—

::I am sorry. Where were we?

There is a long-term impact when a parent has to leave work. It is harder to save on one income and non-working parents pay rent or mortgage interest for far longer than they would have done if they were working.

Childcare makes a big difference to ending generational poverty. I have a few cases from new mums in my inbox at present. Some can choose to go back to work, but if someone does not earn enough, they do not have a choice, because they just cannot afford childcare. They feel that the Government is playing a game of chicken with them. Sometimes they blink and pay the childcare costs themselves; sometimes they do not blink and leave their jobs for three, four or five years, which means that the Government loses the income tax that they would otherwise have paid during that time. According to Pregnant Then Screwed, the Scottish economy loses out 71 per cent of the time for mums and 51 per cent of the time for dads.

There is much more to say on the matter, including about the cognitive development of toddlers, who benefit from professional enrichment and from mixing with others. It is obvious that the most common response from parents is not to swallow the cost of childcare themselves or to decide not to work, but to choose not to have children. Scotland’s fertility rate should be 2.1, but it is 1.2 at the moment, which does not bode well for the future. We are stacking up problems and will be looking to fewer people to sustain an ever more costly welfare system in the future.

Many Governments are choosing to act on the issue, but Scotland is not one of them, which is an unfortunate and sad state of affairs.

13:16

::I am sorry. Where were we?

There is a long-term impact when a parent has to leave work. It is harder to save on one income and non-working parents pay rent or mortgage interest for far longer than they would have done if they were working.

Childcare makes a big difference to ending generational poverty. I have a few cases from new mums in my inbox at present. Some can choose to go back to work, but if someone does not earn enough, they do not have a choice, because they just cannot afford childcare. They feel that the Government is playing a game of chicken with them. Sometimes they blink and pay the childcare costs themselves; sometimes they do not blink and leave their jobs for three, four or five years, which means that the Government loses the income tax that they would otherwise have paid during that time. According to Pregnant Then Screwed, the Scottish economy loses out 71 per cent of the time for mums and 51 per cent of the time for dads.

There is much more to say on the matter, including about the cognitive development of toddlers, who benefit from professional enrichment and from mixing with others. It is obvious that the most common response from parents is not to swallow the cost of childcare themselves or to decide not to work, but to choose not to have children. Scotland’s fertility rate should be 2.1, but it is 1.2 at the moment, which does not bode well for the future. We are stacking up problems and will be looking to fewer people to sustain an ever more costly welfare system in the future.

Many Governments are choosing to act on the issue, but Scotland is not one of them, which is an unfortunate and sad state of affairs.

13:16

::I thank Roz McCall for bringing the debate to the chamber.

Childcare is a matter dear to my heart. I am a grandpa, and my grandson is lucky that, as well as mum and dad, he has grannies and grandpas—and great-grannies and great-grandpas—to fill the gap from time to time. It is also a matter that comes up regularly in our caseloads.

The question at the heart of the motion is whether funded childcare can be a net contributor to the Scottish economy. Nobody questions whether free public education for all is a valuable or necessary step for our economy, and if that level of provision was adopted in early years childcare policy, perhaps we would not question that either. The career benefit to parents is hard to calculate, but, depending on the number of children that someone chooses to have, the lack of childcare provision in Scotland could cost them four, five or six years of their salary over their career, not to mention the detrimental effect on promotions and pension contributions.

We must be cognisant that the burden falls primarily on women now and in later life. There are long-term impacts of having a parent leave work. It is harder to save on one income, and as has been said people have to make conscious decisions when they are paying for kids. There is a strong correlation between someone, as a child, having a parent who was not in work and that person growing up and not being at work.

Expanding funded childcare—