Chamber and committees

With the summer festivals season approaching, Scotland’s cities are gearing up for a busy and vibrant few months, kicking off with the fantastic Nuart Aberdeen festival of street art, which begins on 8 June. What role does the cabinet secretary see culture and the arts playing in Scotland’s on-going pandemic recovery?

I, too, welcome the opportunity to debate the issue of mental health during this mental health awareness week which, this year, focuses on anxiety.

All Governments are facing multiple and wide-ranging challenges in their efforts to ensure good mental health and wellbeing. Those challenges are cross-cutting, complex and everyone’s business—a public health issue that we will grapple with for some time.

The Scottish Government’s mental health strategy sets out the action that is required to prevent, and respond to, poor mental health, including increasing the mental health workforce in A and E settings, GP practices, police custody settings and prisons.

Not in our wildest dreams did we predict the significant mental health impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, any reference to which is disappointingly absent from the Labour motion and the Tory and Liberal Democrat amendments.

Furthermore, although they include a range of challenges and points, the motion and those amendments, in my view, lack context and focus to one degree or another—the proverbial Lego pieces thrown in the air. They make no reference to the cost of living crisis, the impact of Brexit Britain, the limited fiscal levers and many other highly relevant factors that significantly compromise mental health.

We know the linkages that exist between poverty, poor mental health, offending and other vulnerability factors. I want to focus on those individuals who are in poor mental health and come into contact with the police. We have been grappling with that issue for many years; it normally involves individuals who are distressed and often intoxicated, who contact the police seeking help. The Criminal Justice Committee has been considering that issue, too.

According to Police Scotland, demand in relation to mental health increases between the hours of 7 pm and 3 am, when services are often no longer available. Mental health incidents routinely take up around 8 hours, and a recent evaluation estimated the cost to policing at £14.6 million per annum, with each visit to A and E estimated to cost the NHS around £5,000.

Section 297 of the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003 makes provision for officers to “remove” a person who is suspected of having “a mental disorder”

“to a place of safety”

when they are found “in a public place”.

However, most people are in a private place—their home—and officers are not trained to recognise mental disorder, neither should they be. That piece of legislation does not work; it leaves officers to use their initiative with limited or no practical options available to them—in effect, making the system work.

The Scottish Government is committed to ensuring that the mental health strategy is data and intelligence driven, and I very much welcome the work of Police Scotland to develop a dashboard to quantify the number of mental-health-related incidents that police attend.

Of course, a cohort of the people who are found in those circumstances enter police custody, and I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to increase healthcare staff in custody settings. A range of models are, indeed, already in place across Scotland, including on-site 24/7 healthcare practitioners, hub models and on-call GP models.

I also welcome His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland’s—

It is welcome news that the most recent edition of the global green finance index has shown Scotland rising through the rankings in green finance. Two Scottish cities feature in that index, compared with just one financial centre in England. What assessment has been made of those findings, and what steps are being taken to build on that progress?

To ask the Scottish Government what action is being taken to ensure that Scotland’s financial sector plays its role in tackling our climate emergency. (S6O-02224)

Would any other member like to come in?

We will take a short break. I ask members and others to be back in the room by 11:40.

Section 3—Removal of restriction on bail in certain solemn cases

The member has indicated that she wishes to withdraw amendment 67. Does any member object to its being withdrawn?

The result of the division is: For 4, Against 4, Abstentions 0.

As there is an equality of votes, as convener, I use my casting vote to vote against the amendment.

Amendment 58 disagreed to.

Amendments 59, 30, 60 to 62, 32, 63, 64, 2, 33 and 34 not moved.

Section 2 agreed to.

I suggest that we pause our stage 2 proceedings at this point. We will resume consideration of amendments at our next meeting, which will be on Wednesday 17 May.

I thank the cabinet secretary for attending.

Does anyone else want to move it?