Chamber and committees

Can you give us any feedback from the different operators? Do they feel that flat-rate fares could be introduced? Are you getting positive feedback, or does that depend on where they are in the country?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. I welcome you and your officials. If you do not mind, I will ask you a couple of questions on the fair fares review. Are you able to set out a timetable for us for the delivery of a national or regional integrated ticketing scheme, and where are we in that timeframe?

There will be a pilot of flat-rate bus fares. Why does Scotland need that when Lothian Buses has successfully operated a flat-rate scheme for years and when one has been piloted in England since January last year? Is Scotland different?

You briefly mentioned the modal shift from private cars to public transport. How will the recommendations of the fair fares review support Scottish Government policy? How do you intend the measures in your policy to have an impact? That probably didna make much sense.

I congratulate my good friend Clare Adamson on securing this members’ business debate on child safety week 2024. As I looked back at the text of the motion last night, I was reminded that Clare Adamson has lodged motions about child safety week previously—in fact, she has done it every year for the past 10 years. I totally understand why. She has bravely spoken previously of her family’s loss and experience, and about the importance of road safety. I applaud her for her continued consistent and passionate advocacy of child safety week, and for using her platform as an MSP to promote safety for children and young people.

As Clare Adamson has already outlined, the theme of this year’s child safety week is “Safety. Sorted!” The campaign aims to make families feel confident that, by making one small change, they can prevent a serious accident and be clear about what they need to do to keep their children safe.

Some of the posters for the campaign do not need words—they simply show a wide range of small changes that can be made to protect children. Those include: making sure that hot drinks are not placed near edges; tying up blind cords; putting cleaning products out of reach; and making sure that battery covers are properly secured.

The materials provide lots of information and numerous additional tips, some of which are well known but are well worth repeating, and some of which—I have to admit—I had not even thought of. Those include the dangers of button batteries, how to keep them away from small children and what to do if one is swallowed—or, as the leaflet puts it: look, check, store, dispose and act.

Information is provided on the risks that are posed by water beads, which can swell up to the size of a golf ball; on the importance of keeping nappy sacks well away from babies, because they will grab on to just about anything and bring it to their mouths, and nappy sacks can cling; and on the risks that are posed by magnets, especially powerful ones.

The information also highlights times when children should be taught to leave dogs alone. The trigger times are when dogs are sleeping, eating, getting a treat or playing with certain toys that they might not want to share. There is also advice on how to cut foods—not just grapes, but other foods, including sausages. They should all be cut in half long ways, then cut in half long ways again.

The information highlights that 30 children go to hospital with hot-drink burns every day. It also sets out how to cross a road safely—“Think; Stop; Look and listen; Wait; Look and listen again”—and how to secure blind cords safely.

The Child Accident Prevention Trust website has a wealth of helpful information across a range of areas. It is not just on the aspects that I have mentioned; there is also information on fire safety, falls, beach safety and so on. All the information will help to save lives if it is seen more widely.

This is the point of this year’s child safety week, and of this members’ business debate: it is to raise awareness of the small steps that we can take to reduce the chance of an accident happening.

Again, I thank Clare Adamson for securing the debate, which means that we are able to stand in the chamber of Scotland’s Parliament to share this advice and highlight where it can be found. I hope that that will make a difference and help to protect children from accidents.

The NHS in Scotland—our publicly owned, publicly run, free-at-the-point-of-use national health service—is one of our country’s greatest assets. For more than seven decades, it has served Scotland through thick and thin, even in a pandemic, looking after folk from the cradle to the grave and aathin in atween.

In years to come, I look forward to being able to talk about it alongside the national care service that is being set up by the SNP Government. The establishment of a national care service is a huge undertaking, but it is just one part of the reforms that we need to consider in health and social care if we want to ensure that it is sustainable in the long term. That sits alongside targeted investments such as the £190 million in multidisciplinary teams to support GPs.

When it comes to health, the answer is not just to throw money at the private sector, or, as Wes Streeting has said that Labour will do, to throw the NHS to the private sector. I firmly believe that at the heart of all the issues that the NHS faces in every part of the UK is Westminster austerity and the £18 billion to £30 billion of cuts that are contained in Labour and Tory spending plans. That threatens the NHS’s future. When it comes to the future of the NHS in Scotland, it is in the best hands possible when it is in public hands, but how we decide to fund the NHS and our spending on a range of other policies that impact folk’s health is a difficult balancing act.

Whether or not we choose to admit it, the question of how much a life is worth runs through many of the decisions that are made in this place, and not just in healthcare. The answer probably varies depending on the policy area that money is being spent in. The nature of what our NHS does means that we can just about identify every life that it saves and every life that it could not save. There is even a measure used in approving treatments that comes as close as you will get to answering that question. It considers quality-adjusted life years when making the most difficult decisions about allocating resources. However, elsewhere in Government, it becomes much harder to pinpoint the individuals affected by those life-and-death decisions. For example, if we invest in improving road safety and road fatalities go down, we will never know who did not crash. Conversely, we know that poverty and poor air quality shorten lives, but would we see those listed on a death certificate?

Initiatives such as the Scottish child payment and low-emission zones may go on to play as much of a role in keeping folk healthy and tackling health inequalities as some parts of our NHS will. Scrapping the child cap would have a similar impact. That would not just give more bairns a better chance at life; it would likely mean that they go on to live longer and healthier lives, too.

I am not suggesting that reform of the NHS be that wide ranging, but as we consider reform, it is worth recognising the role that prevention can play and that not every intervention needs to involve a doctor. I know a lot of folk who view their GP as their only point of contact for everything. That is a reflection of the capabilities of those GPs and the esteem in which they are held. However, some will insist on seeing their GP even when nurses, physiotherapists or other medical professionals are better placed to help them. That multidisciplinary approach is the way forward, and it is starting to become more common and more accepted. It can also be built on.

One example of that good practice is the Grampian eye health network, which works well in my constituency, and which I think other health boards would do well to look at. It is an initiative that sends folk with eye difficulties to an optometrist in the first instance. That takes pressure off GPs and A and E departments, and it means that patients can get a much more appropriate diagnosis or referral from someone who specialises in looking after eyes and deals with them day in, day out.

Nobody is saying that our NHS is perfect. There is work that needs to be done, and there are improvements that can be made. The motion acknowledges that reform is needed, and it looks forward to how those improvements will be delivered. However, let me finish by talking up the state of the NHS in Scotland.

Under SNP Governments, NHS funding has more than doubled, to £19.5 billion this year. We have worked with trade unions to avoid a single day of strike action over pay. NHS staffing is at a record high, with 31,300 more doctors, nurses and other staff than there were in 2007. Compared with England, we have, per head of population, more doctors, more nurses and midwives, more hospital consultants, more GPs, more dentists and more NHS staff overall, and we are continuing to invest in training even more staff, with 880 more junior doctor training posts created since 2014.

The NHS will stay in safe hands and in public hands under this SNP Government.

It has been mentioned in the chamber that I raised no concerns about the remarks that were made about another committee member. Will the committee’s convener correct the record on that today? Will he also inform the chamber when the letters from John Swinney were shared with the committee? Those points are very important.

Yes.

Given that Scotland does much of the heavy lifting when it comes to harnessing the power of our natural capital in order to reach net zero, and that, for the whole of the UK to reach net zero, Scotland must do so by 2045—we have heard that in evidence before—is it not logical that Scotland should receive funding in line with the work that it will have to undertake?

Good morning, cabinet secretary. How will the proposed new draft national outcome on climate action support the urgent actions that are necessary to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions and build Scotland’s resilience to climate change?