Seòmar agus comataidhean

Will the minister give way?

I thank my colleague Douglas Ross for securing this members’ business debate and for all the work that he is doing standing up for mothers in Moray. I also welcome the support that Richard Lochhead is giving, and I commend the campaigning efforts of the Keep MUM group, which has worked tirelessly to ensure that the local maternity services are restored. The group’s efforts have not been in vain, but they have been frustrated by the SNP Government.

As we have heard, when maternity services were initially downgraded, families were told that that would be only a temporary solution. It was to be for only a year. Three years on, we have seen little progress. I know that expectant mums from Moray are still being forced to travel unacceptable distances to give birth in either Aberdeen or Inverness. Instead of resolving the issue, the Government has launched an independent review to consider how the consultant-led service could be reinstated. That is laudable, but we need results. The people of Moray deserve much more than a review; they deserve urgent action to restore their local maternity services. That is what families in Moray want. I welcome the work of Richard Lochhead and Douglas Ross.

The shocking figures on the decreases in the numbers of babies delivered in Dr Gray’s that Douglas Ross quoted were entirely predictable. The Government refused to deliver maternity services to Caithness, which means that expectant mothers in labour have had to face the prospect of being transported for two hours in the back of an ambulance to reach a centralised urban hospital. How can that be acceptable?

As we all know, pregnancy is already an anxious and stressful time. I do not believe that sending expectant mothers on long journeys, if the roads to Raigmore hospital or to Aberdeen are open, safeguards their wellbeing.

As much as the Government would like to sweep the issue in Caithness under the carpet, it is not going away. The downgrading of maternity services means that more than 90 per cent of expectant mums in Caithness are travelling down to Raigmore. Only 15 out of 160 births happen in the locality. More concerning, inductions have become more commonplace. Just over half Caithness mums are induced for birth in Raigmore hospital. That is far from ideal. The overall impact is that many women in Caithness are apprehensive about starting a family, as are women in Moray. That will not change until there is more use of recovery teams in Caithness or the full deployment of specialist teams to maternity units that are struggling to recruit staff.

That is why Moray needs a consultant-led team.

Our Highland communities do not want the centralisation of more and more services in Inverness and Aberdeen. Families in Caithness and Moray want a Government that protects local services. It is time to restore services fully, so that mothers can give birth locally. We need to cement the fabric of communities by giving the people who want to be part of those communities confidence that they can get care locally. That is what mums need to expect as they start their families, but it will not happen if they have to travel miles to give birth—that is centralisation.

Centralisation is not what we want for our health services in Scotland, of which we are so proud when they deliver care and are run locally.

There we go. There is no yes or no answer and no guarantee of a prison. I would have loved to have heard it from his lips, but I have not.

It is time for the SNP Government to launch its long-overdue consultation on Scottish court fees for 2021 to 2024. When it is launched, I hope that the consultation will pave the way to making access to justice fairer and less expensive.

In particular, we need to look at the setting of annual fees for guardianships, which are essential to the lives of people who are vulnerable or disabled. Currently, the fees are set by the value of someone’s estate, meaning that those who have an estate that is valued between £50,000 and £250,000 are forced to pay £600 a year to have their accounts assessed. People with estates that are valued higher than that must pay more than £1,000 a year, which can add up to thousands of pounds over the course of a guardianship. It is questionable how justifiable that is, considering that the guardian may be the life partner of the person who has to pay the fee.

The fees are excessive. As a constituent put it to me, why should his wife pay a fee for somebody to check the work that he does on her behalf? It is no more than a tax on the disabled and vulnerable. Surely, Scotland can do better than that. Perhaps it is time to consider whether we should follow the system that is used in England and Wales, which has a much flatter fee structure. I call on the cabinet secretary to include that as part of the consultation, which he will no doubt now undertake.

An effective justice system requires fair and timely access for all. The Government must prioritise reducing the court backlog, fast track the building of modern prisons, including our long-promised Highland prison, and ensure that guardianship fees are far more reasonable and fairer. As the cabinet secretary settles in at his new desk, I urge him to add those issues to his to-do list and not to leave them in the cupboard for his successor to tackle.

I congratulate members who are giving their maiden speeches this afternoon and for the insight that they have brought to the Parliament.

Justice is the cornerstone of all democracies, and Covid-19 has definitely challenged the timely delivery of justice. The criminal court backlog has more than doubled in size, leaving many without meaningful access to justice. Although I welcome the use of digital courts to reduce the backlog and for hearings, their use is predicated on having good broadband, which we cannot take for granted across Scotland and especially in the Highlands.

Reducing the backlog needs to be a top priority for the cabinet secretary, but he will also face a number of other pressures, which do not come purely as a result of the pandemic. It is clear that his predecessor left him with an overflowing in-tray of problems: fewer front-line police officers since 2013; record numbers of criminals flouting electronic tag sentences; and long delays to the delivery of new, modern prisons. It is a sorry state of affairs and it highlights how much a soft touch to justice has not been working for Scotland.

The cabinet secretary needs to try a new approach, by tackling problems head-on, and, in doing so, he must restore local policing, put victims first and ensure that our communities are kept safe. If he does that, I will happily support his ideas.

However, most of all, Scotland needs a justice secretary who delivers on the promises that his party makes. In the Highlands and Islands, we have waited more than a decade for the promised new prison to be built in Inverness. We have had 10 years of broken promises, which are costing taxpayers more and more money.

In 2011, as the cabinet secretary will know, the SNP Government promised to build a new prison that would cost £52 million, but it failed to deliver. In 2016, the SNP made another promise to build a new prison at a cost of £66 million, but the Government broke that promise, too. This year, it has made a promise to build the same prison, by 2024, at a cost of £110 million. Will it be third time lucky, or a hat trick of broken promises, cabinet secretary?

This Government cannot keep kicking the can down the road; it cannot make Highlanders wait for a modern prison, which is desperately needed. By doing so, it is letting down our dedicated prison staff at HMP Inverness, who are working in a Victorian-era prison. Such prisons are

“costly to run and no longer fit-for-purpose”.

That is the conclusion of Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons, who has called on the Government to expedite their replacement.

There is every reason for a new prison in Inverness to be fast tracked. It is a shovel-ready project. The site has been purchased and planning permission has been confirmed. In addition, let us not underestimate the importance of the many jobs that the project will create.

Perhaps the cabinet secretary would like to intervene, as I have a question for him. Will he—can he—step up to the plate and deliver on the three promises that his predecessors have singularly failed to deliver? A simple answer of yes or no will do for me.

I want to pick up on the point about a land value tax. I should declare that I own and farm 500 acres. Last year, mixed farm incomes were £8,100, on average, which is hardly enough to survive on. How would farmers cover the land value tax that the report proposes if their income was only £8,100?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I am sorry to add confusion to the process that is under way. Given my position, I will withdraw from the next round, to allow for a more focused vote. I hope that that is acceptable. I will notify the business team accordingly.

took the oath.