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I am pleased that, in her original response, the cabinet secretary set out that trans people are at the centre of this. They need our support and friendship at this time.

We are seeing political reaction across the UK. Our Labour colleague and the First Minister of Wales, Mark Drakeford, rightly said today that this is a “dangerous” situation. He said that it could be a “slippery slope” in terms of devolution. Many of us are concerned that the UK Government, which is a bad actor in this process, could strike again on other legislation that we seek to pass. This is a direct attack on not only self-identification for trans people but Scottish devolution.

What discussions can the Scottish Government have with the UK Government and other Governments to defend our democracy, devolution in Scotland and people’s human rights?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Secretary of State for Scotland making an order under section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998, preventing the Scottish Parliament’s Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill from proceeding to royal assent.

The cabinet secretary is correct in saying that the Scottish Parliament passed the GRR bill by a significant majority, and we did so because we believe that trans people should be able to live, work and die with dignity. That is what the bill is about. It is about dignity, fairness and equality for a marginalised group of trans citizens.

The secretary of state may hide behind legal advice, but the truth is that the Tories at Westminster have proven that they are no friends to trans people—and, as they are the architects of the rape clause, we know that they are no friends to women and girls. Does the cabinet secretary agree that this is a cynical and dangerous power move by an out-of-control UK Government that is determined to wreck the bill at any cost?

I join colleagues in congratulating Stephanie Callaghan on securing this debate and bringing the Parliament together. We can hear from the speeches that members are passionate about the topic, which is always very encouraging.

I wish Maurice Golden many happy returns. I hope that he has cake and candles waiting at home, and I am sure he will wish for a circular economy. The minister is here to take note of that.

Like Stephanie Callaghan, I have had the pleasure and privilege of visiting ACS at its North Lanarkshire headquarters, which is in my region. I encourage colleagues from Central Scotland and elsewhere to reach out. I am sure that the team that is in the gallery, which is very welcome, would be glad to welcome visitors to its site. I was able to have an extensive tour of the site and to chat to apprentices. We are here to talk about the environmental benefits of circular fashion, but it is clear that there are benefits from fair work and the social change that we want to see. It is all about a fairer Scotland and the fairer world that we want to live in.

Before I forget to say so—it is always good to take opportunities in members’ business debates—because there is such interest in the topic and the wider themes, I will be hosting an event in Parliament for Fashion Revolution on 27 April. Everyone is welcome to come to that.

Back in 2021, when the 26th United Nations climate change conference of the parties—COP26—took place in Glasgow, I had the privilege of meeting Carry Somers, who is the co-founder of Fashion Revolution. We met to discuss a future world in which clothes enrich every aspect of our lives and the environment.

Fashion should be fun, but our addiction to fast fashion can be criminally damaging. I ask colleagues to reflect on the tragic disaster that happened almost 10 years ago at the Rana Plaza complex in Bangladesh. More than a thousand people lost their lives and thousands more were injured. When we talk about clothing and textiles and the aspiration for net zero apparel, we must think about the people behind the labels and the garments. I hope that, in Scotland, we will not just talk the talk but we will walk the walk.

It is really encouraging to hear about the values that ACS promotes both locally and beyond. That takes investment. Any company has to look at risk and at what is happening with legislation. Maurice Golden is right: we need to look at what more the Scottish Parliament can do working with the Government, and at where there should be co-operation between the Scottish Government and the UK Government.

The motion is right to recognise

“the growing calls to incentivise responsible and circular consumption through fiscal and regulatory levers”.

We need to talk about the carrot and the stick. Some of that will not be popular, but we need system change. Yes, individuals, communities and pioneering businesses are doing responsible things, but we are getting pockets of good practice when we need structural and systemic change. It is important that those discussions involve our trade union colleagues, workers and those in the third sector who are doing innovative work.

Time is short, as it always is in members’ business debates, and I have probably missed out all the people whom I wanted to mention. However, the debate has shown that there is a lot of common ground. Maurice Golden chairs the circular economy cross-party group, and we are looking forward to a circular economy bill. We have big opportunities in the Parliament. I hope that we can seize them and have a fashion revolution in Scotland.

I feel a bit cheeky, because I saw Graham Simpson on the screen also trying to get in.

On the point about culture change, we have heard that young people are, in many ways, leading the way on that. There is a role there for education, as Stephanie Callaghan mentioned. I was looking back at social media and tweets ahead of the debate, and I saw newspaper headlines about a member of the royal family wearing a recycled dress, but it was actually just a dress that she had worn more than once. There is a lot of misogyny and sexism around when we talk about fashion, particularly when we talk about women who are in the public eye. What more could the Government do with education and public information to challenge some of the more negative stereotyping that is out there?

We should make no mistake: this is a humanitarian emergency. It is costing lives and damaging the wellbeing of NHS and social care workers. NHS Lanarkshire has just been mentioned. That is the crisis within the crisis. The code black nightmare that began in 2021 continues today in 2023, so constituents in Lanarkshire want to know when that will end.

I have two short questions for now, one of which is again about Lanarkshire. We need more doctors for out of hours and across primary care. Can the cabinet secretary update me on that?

As well as the immediate action that we need to take, we need long-term solutions, so will he agree, with the BMA and others, to facilitate a national conversation on the future and survival of the NHS?

Joe FitzPatrick makes really important points. If he will indulge me for a few seconds, I want to pick out one email. A constituent who is a trans woman wrote to me:

“I hope the day my death certificate is eventually issued comes in the far future but when it does, I want it to be accurate of how I live my life and of who I am”.

She said that she wants trans people to get married with pride, to be able to rest in peace and to finally stop being the target of a manufactured culture war. I read that out because we do not have any trans people sitting in members’ seats in the chamber—perhaps some are in the public gallery.

Does Joe FitzPatrick agree with my constituent’s remarks? I hope that, one day, trans people will sit in the chamber to vote on rights and legislation that will affect them directly.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking to ensure that children and young people in families experiencing poverty are supported throughout the Christmas holiday period. (S6O-01730)

I welcome the minister’s response. I know that he will agree that no child or young person should experience holiday hunger at Christmas or lack access to nutritious food as a result of poverty, at any time of year.

Can the minister reassure me that the Scottish Government is satisfied that local authorities and third sector organisations have access to all the resources that they might need to ensure that no child or young person will experience holiday hunger over the festive period? I would like to suggest a new year resolution. Will the Government redouble its efforts to expand universal free school meals to pupils in primaries 6 and 7 and those in secondary schools in 2023?

Thank you, convener. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here in support of Karen McKeown, the petitioner. As everyone knows, Karen’s partner, Luke Henderson, died by suicide in December 2017, so this is a difficult time for her, her children and the wider family.

We meet at a time that can be difficult for many of our constituents. Many of us welcomed the opportunity to take part in a debate in Parliament on male suicide. That debate will now have to wait until the new year but the issues are of concern to all of us.

I am grateful to the committee because the session with the cabinet secretary and his officials has been great in the sense that he is not trying to put any spin on the matter. I know that he is sincere about the challenges. It was reassuring that, at the beginning, he said that, although there might be a different outlook about the process for getting there, he, the Government and Karen McKeown want the same thing.

To be frank, one suicide is one too many. We can examine the numbers and data, which is important—targets have a role to play because we have to monitor progress—but we are all here because we want to save lives.

Committee members have asked pertinent questions, including about the wider impact on families and communities. I have been scribbling some notes. We are rightly focused on what happens within the NHS—primary care, access to general practitioners, NHS 24, mental health harms and so on—but there is a wider piece of work to do. Therefore, it is good that the committee has kept the petition open.

I have made notes about employers and education because we all have to become more literate about mental health. To be frank, I struggle to signpost constituents to the right place as a regional MSP working across two different health boards and three different local authorities. Pilot schemes are welcome, but it can be difficult to know what the pathway is. All the MSPs sitting in this committee room might have different systems and procedures to which to point people.

Karen’s partner Luke had a history of mental illness. She has highlighted the point that she and Luke knew how to ask for help, so they did the right things. They reached out many times and still could not get the help that they needed. I welcome the work that is in the pipeline for next year and do not doubt the good intentions of the cabinet secretary and the Government but we have serious problems with resourcing and workforce, of which the committee is well aware.

I want to pay tribute to the workforce because what I am seeing increasingly is a workforce that is struggling, and that is having an impact on their mental health and wellbeing. We have to be honest about that.

The cabinet secretary is absolutely right and it is good to hear that he can take a wider view because of his background in justice and so on. Karen McKeown and I met the former Minister for Mental Health, Sport and Wellbeing after I raised this tragic case with the First Minister a number of years ago, and we talked about some of the issues that Paul Sweeney has gone into today, such as drug disorders and alcohol. We have not talked about alcohol but it is a big issue. Clare Haughey, who was the minister at the time and had been a mental health professional, told us that the strand of work was for her public health colleague and she was the mental health minister. We must get away from that siloed thinking, and we are seeing some progress on that.

The petition is so important because the constructive challenge needs to continue, and I am sure that the cabinet secretary would welcome that. We do not yet have answers about resourcing and how we are going to deliver on the good intentions. That is what Karen McKeown talks about in the petition. Without going into detail about individual constituents and others in different parts of Scotland, I know people who, this week, phoned their general practitioner to try to get an appointment to discuss their mental health and the fact that they are struggling dozens of times, even over a hundred times, in two days. Colleagues have previously raised that issue with the cabinet secretary in the chamber and it is the reality. How do we close the gap between what we want people to think is on offer for them to have hope and know that they are not alone and the reality of the waiting times that some people experience? I have lots of statistics here about people in Lanarkshire, for example, who are waiting for several months, if not years, for psychological therapy. We need to go into granular detail about how we are going to do that.

Again, like everyone else, I pay tribute to Karen McKeown. I know that she is listening today because I am looking at my phone and I see that she has been messaging me. This is a difficult time for families with lived experience, but I hope that they know that we, as a Parliament, are taking the issue seriously.