Chamber and committees

During Scottish business week, I visited retailers in my constituency, one of which no longer has a post office. That has resulted in a surplus of floor area, which is now partitioned off to form an empty but usable space. What can be done to support or incentivise businesses such as supermarkets to ensure that unused floor space can be used for community benefit?

I congratulate Paul McLennan on bringing this important debate to the Parliament. I am pleased to join colleagues around the chamber in debating world mental health day and, within that, mental health in an unequal world.

I thank all the organisations that provided members with briefings ahead of the debate. I also acknowledge people present in the chamber and beyond who have lived or living experience of compromised mental health. I thank them for listening.

Earlier this week, I joined a Scottish Association for Mental Health briefing for north-east MSPs. Although the focus of the briefing was suicide prevention, I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu listening to the updated data on young people and suicide risk, albeit that it was framed in the context of Covid-19.

In its briefing paper on the impact of Covid-19 on 10 to 17-year-olds, Public Health Scotland outlined how

“Loneliness has been an unintended consequence affecting young people.”

In particular, it has affected vulnerable young people with communication difficulties, young carers, young people in the justice system and those who previously sought support because of mental health difficulties.

Studies indicate that some young people who had poor mental health and wellbeing prior to the pandemic had better mental health during lockdown, possibly due to school closures and the removal of school-based pressures. However, young people with pre-existing mental health issues described many barriers to seeking help, including not wanting to burden their families, feeling ashamed or feeling that they were not sufficiently unwell to seek help.

The World Federation for Mental Health report that was published to coincide with world mental health day states:

“Equality, fairness and opportunity have to be central to developing our young people in order to address existing inequalities and their effects on young people’s mental health wellbeing.”

World mental health day 2021 provides an opportunity for us to consider how we might achieve that.

The Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care recently outlined poverty as the single biggest driver of poor mental health. We know that the pandemic has exacerbated pre-existing structural inequality in our society, but disadvantaged groups have disproportionately felt the adverse impact on mental health. As Paul McLennan outlined, the Scottish Government has committed £120 million towards a mental health recovery and renewal fund, with £10.3 million being allocated to improve access to child and adolescent mental health services.

The World Federation for Mental Health report reminds us that Covid-19 has underscored how critical mental health and wellbeing are for all children and young people, but the magnitude of the mental health burden that the world faces is simply not being matched with the response that it demands.

This month, UNICEF launches its report, “The State of the World’s Children 2021: On My Mind: Promoting, protecting and caring for children’s mental health”. It will call on Governments to commit to increase investment in CAMHS, promote connection through evidence-based interventions and take a leading role in breaking the silence surrounding mental health. Let us make 10 October—world mental health day—the starting point for that. I very much hope to see members there.

Pauline McNeill is keen to come in.

Ms McNeill, do you want to come in on this subject?

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the seventh meeting in 2021 of the Criminal Justice Committee. Apologies have been received from Katy Clark.

The first agenda item is to decide whether to take in private items 4 and 5, which are to consider today’s evidence and to discuss our work programme. Do we agree to take those items in private?

Members indicated agreement.

That perhaps covers my follow-up question, which was about how specialist criminal law firms might need to change their model of practice and what budget considerations might need to be taken into account to allow that to happen. Do you want to add anything on that?

That is a helpful response.

That concludes the public part of our meeting. Our next meeting will be on Wednesday 27 October, when we will hold a round-table evidence session on the role of the Scottish criminal justice sector in tackling the misuse of drugs.

I wonder whether post-Covid recovery provides an opportunity and could be used as a platform for reform. That brings me on to issues around changing demand. There has to be a balance between how we promote reform and the change in demand on the police service. In the report “Five year financial planning”, you talk about changing demand arising from the changing nature of crime, community expectations and needs and so on. We recently visited the Scottish crime campus and had quite a helpful discussion about the challenges of recruiting specialist staff to tackle, for example, cybercrime. Bearing that in mind, what might be the budgetary implications around changing demand and the specialist nature of some of that new demand? How might that impact on budgetary considerations?

I ask members to confine their questions to budgetary issues. I am afraid that you are going—