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I agree with you, but if everybody is in agreement with that, why do we keep cutting the budget? Yesterday, when I spoke to the users of that climbing facility, who are recovering from all sorts of addictions and whatnot, it was clear that the cost of treatment would be exponentially more than the cost of that facility. That is the point that is not getting picked up. Is sport an easy option when it comes to cutting funding?

That was a good plug for the SAMH event tomorrow night, which I am hosting.

I come back to this point, though: the active schools network, although quite patchy at the moment, is a really good delivery mechanism. One of the big problems with it was the extracurricular angle and the issue of how kids got home afterwards, but now that there is free bus travel, that problem has been taken away.

Now the question is: how do we connect what is taught through active schools to the community? How do we ensure a pathway in that respect? As I said, despite all the good work that you are trying to do, the reality is that physical literacy in the country is significantly declining, and I say that as a coach of 30 years, watching the kids who come to me. We are having to go further and further back in their literacy journey to get them ready to participate in sport, so how do we connect active schools to community sport—that is a massively important question. Indeed, how do we utilise delivery mechanisms such as the 1,140 hours of free childcare so that we have active play and start to teach our kids physical literacy again? You are right that local facilities are closing all over the place and are under extreme pressure. In this instance, though, we potentially have a delivery mechanism that is not being fully utilised.

On top of that, I have a question about utilising the school estate. Has there been an audit of all the facilities that could be available but which are currently not being fully utilised?

I appreciate that your angle with active schools is that it should support PE, but as an aside, I think that PE should align itself with the community, too. I do not see the point of doing six weeks of basketball and getting kids really enthusiastic about it, and then moving on to something else if there is no outlet for them to move on to. I think that there is a disconnect in that respect.

I was at an event at a social enterprise yesterday that is phenomenal. It uses a big climbing wall in a former church in Kilmarnock, and it has moved into outdoor canoeing and all sorts of stuff. Those activities are for people in recovery. They are not about teaching people sport but about teaching people through sport and bringing people together and creating confidence, resilience and aspiration through group activity. To me, that is investing in health and not just things like recovery beds, needle exchange and so on. What it is doing is giving people a different direction. I think that that is not understood particularly well. Like many other similar sports organisations—including your organisation—that social enterprise is under extreme financial pressure. Do you think that the Government understands the impact that sport can have in the community, not just for the sake of sport, but for education through sport? Are we doing enough to promote that impact?

Although your budget is now £10 million less than when I came into the Parliament.

Thank you for letting me come back in, convener.

I want to ask about the legacy issue. It is clear from looking back at the 2014 games that a successful legacy of that was the club together programme that was run by Scottish Athletics. Consideration was given to mirroring that in swimming and cycling. That involved investment in the provision of 15 hours of professional help in a club, which was paid for by the sponsor club and the local council. It was their job to look at how we recruit. The results of that programme were measurable. Over that period, an extra 3,000 people were involved in all aspects of it.

Do you think that it would be worth revisiting that model and looking at how we could expand it?

Like Jackie Baillie, I am really pleased to see the minister’s amendment 50, although I agree that more clarity is required, because it does not go far enough in supporting Anne’s law.

As the minister has said, amendment 50A would set a requirement for care home service providers to provide a written reason to both the resident and the essential care supporter in any case in which a visit is denied. It represents an effort to ensure that records are retained that could be used as evidence for any future inquiries or for evaluation of the implementation of the law, which is pertinent to amendment 50D.

I welcome the minister’s comments about her intention to go further than what is proposed in amendment 50A and her offer to have further discussions on how we could strengthen the amendment. Therefore, I will not move amendment 50A.

Amendment 50B would place a requirement on the Scottish ministers to publish the code of practice in such a manner that it is publicly available and to provide it in an easy-read format. I welcome the minister’s support for that amendment and her intention to strengthen it. It is important that an accessible and easy-read version of the code of practice is available. Given that many care home residents will experience greater mental decline than the average population, it is especially important that the code is accessible to them.

Amendment 50C would place a requirement on ministers to revise the code if a significant number of problems have been reported. That is extremely important—we want to be able to trigger revisions to the code if it is clear that it is not working as intended. Amendment 50C would also trigger revisions in a timely manner.

Amendment 50D would place a requirement on ministers to publish a report on the implementation of Anne’s law, broken down by council area, each year. Given what we are trying to do with amendment 50A, I do not think that that would be a particularly onerous requirement, as we will be gathering evidence as we go along. Amendment 50D would improve parliamentary scrutiny of the implementation of Anne’s law and would help to identify any areas in which additional support is needed to make sure that Anne’s Law is in place for every person who receives care in a care home and their families, which, surely, is what we are all here to try to do. Therefore, I intend to move amendment 50D.

Given the minister’s comments, I will not move amendment 50C at this stage, but it relates to an important area that needs to be explored further.

Amendments 50C and 50D not moved.

Amendment 50, as amended, agreed to.

Amendment 138 not moved.

Section 40, as amended, agreed to.

After Section 40

On the basis of last week’s discussion and debate, I will not move it.

Amendment 134 not moved.

Section 38, as amended, agreed to.

After section 38

Amendment 145, again, follows a recommendation in the stage 1 report, which says:

“Irrespective of the model of accountability, the Committee believes proposals for the creation of a National Care Service need to be accompanied by a reinforced role for the Scottish Parliament in undertaking regular, structured scrutiny of its implementation and the extent to which it is achieving its defined objectives ... In particular, an assessment of the extent to which this is contributing to improved outcomes for those in receipt of social care.”

I think that that is central to discussion of the bill and to the issue of delayed discharge. Amendment 145 seeks to place a statutory duty on ministers to eradicate delayed discharge. They have already pledged to do so, so why should that target not be binding?

The amendment is intended to force the Government to consider all options when tackling delayed discharge, because its current approach is clearly not working. In December 2024, 61,760 days were spent in hospital by people whose discharge had been delayed, and that figure is a 6 per cent increase on the number of days of delay in December 2023. Those statistics come from the monthly figures on delayed discharges in NHS Scotland that were published by Public Health Scotland on 4 February 2025.

I move amendment 145.

The minister makes a really interesting point about collaborative working, which is exactly how the problem should be tackled. It is a problem that the Government already committed to eradicate some time ago, so whatever the Government is doing now is not working. Some of that collaborative work should be about the implementation and adoption of technology, which was the subject of another of my amendments that the minister asked members to vote against.

I am trying to create a focus on delayed discharge because it is a significant issue, not only for social work but in the NHS. I think that a reduction of 25 per cent per year is eminently doable if we do the right things and if we do the collaborative work that the minister suggests, so I press amendment 145.