Chamber and committees

No, but I want to thank the panel for those answers. I realise that none of the witnesses necessarily has particular expertise in the area.

I absolutely agree that a happy mum means a happy baby, and supporting mums in making the right choices for their circumstances must be right at the top of the list. However, I want to point out that there is huge evidence of the benefits of breastfeeding not just for babies but right through to adulthood.

Quite often, there is a perceived risk of significant harm to the baby. Would it be helpful if we expanded access to mother and baby units so that they can offer support to those mums and help them keep their babies? What other perinatal health services could we look at that might provide positive support to those mums and keep families together?

Yes. In particular, it was about the high numbers of care-experienced mums who lose their children at or very close to birth. Would mother and baby unit expansion support that? What other perinatal services could help to keep those babies with their mums?

With around a third of Scotland’s omicron cases being reported in Lanarkshire currently, can the First Minister advise on any additional interventions that can be put in place across Lanarkshire to mitigate more rapid community transmission?

A section of the recommendations references

“The importance of culture to quality and safety in any service”.

That is not only beneficial to service users but of equal importance to staff. Will the cabinet secretary give an indication of what work will be required to progress the delivery of a cultural safety programme?

I thank Pam for bringing the debate to the chamber. I will touch on many of the same points that she did, because they are very important points to make.

Although the international day of people with disabilities should be a time to celebrate and embrace the many and varied achievements of our disabled brothers and sisters, I am afraid that, this year, as we remain in the midst of a pandemic, most people with a disability will struggle to celebrate it.

As we have already heard, the theme of tomorrow’s international day is fighting for rights in the post-Covid era. It is a sad indictment that, in 2021, disabled people are still fighting for their rights. Although the challenges that people with disabilities face are not new, the pandemic has crystallised many of them and has created new ones, too.

Health inequalities between disabled and non-disabled people are stark, and they make for grim reading. Six in 10 people who die of Covid-19 will have a disability, whether visible or hidden, and people with disabilities continue to be more likely to contract Covid than the general population.

On top of disabled people being at greater health risk, the underlying societal conditions that they face require an urgent and sustained response. The latest figures on the disability employment gap in Scotland reveal that the employment rate for disabled people remains 35.5 per cent lower than that for non-disabled people.

Not just now, sorry. I have a lot to fit in, Stephen.

Although disabled Scots make up about 20 per cent of our nation’s population, too often, they remain excluded from much of society, be it decision making, policy setting, employment, culture or sport. As Scotland continues its journey of recovery, people with disabilities—including disabilities that might not be seen—need to be included in all areas of recovery policy.

An ingredient for creating sustainable societies that embrace people with disabilities is to have communities that are based on the law of equity rather than just the law of equality. There is an important difference between the two: equality means that everyone is treated exactly the same regardless of need or any other individual difference, whereas equity means that everyone is provided with what they need to succeed. Equity is about levelling the playing field.

As a South Lanarkshire councillor, I have had the joy and privilege of working with councillor Grant Ferguson, who is the first British Sign Language-using councillor in Scotland. Conducting virtual meetings created great challenges for Grant, and our councillors’ well-meant suggestions were, to be frank, unhelpful and, to be honest, a wee bit rubbish. It took Grant defining his own needs to find real solutions. That clearly demonstrates why the full and direct participation of disabled people is important—hence the popular slogan, “Nothing about us without us”.

However, change cannot be one dimensional. We must challenge attitudes. The pandemic has presented an opportunity to make workplaces more inclusive and allow employers to tap into the benefits of a diverse workforce. For example, a person with autism has a neurodiverse mind—a way of seeing the world differently to others. As my autistic child once said to me, “Mum, the world needs autistic brains to solve the problems normal brains can’t solve.”

There is a vast pool of untapped talent in society—people who can help businesses to become stronger and more competitive. However, they can do that only if those businesses are willing to stop seeing someone’s disability as a problem and to start viewing it as an asset.

Let us show people the strengths and abilities of the persons who are currently being excluded. Let us change attitudes, remove barriers and treat people of all abilities with dignity and respect. Let us learn from disabled people themselves. In the post-Covid world, we must not forget that the idea of returning to how things were before the pandemic is not on. We do not want to go back; we want to go forward towards a more inclusive future and a more inclusive Scotland.

I am talking about parents, those with specialist knowledge or people with neurodiversity and so on.

I do not know whether this is a question for Jennifer King or for another panel member, but what about representation on the national teacher panel and the children and young people’s education council?

Some of my questions follow on from or are connected to what Bob Doris talked about. My first questions are for Mike Corbett.

In previous evidence, we heard that teachers did a lot of really good work in building relationships with pupils while schools were out during the pandemic and that that continued when pupils returned to school. A lot of that has been about pupils’ mental health and wellbeing and young people being in the right place to learn. We also heard anecdotal evidence that teachers are starting to feel that they are possibly losing some of that good work and that there is pressure in relation to academic stuff in that there is a lot more focus on literacy and numeracy at primary school and on exams at secondary school. Has that been teachers’ experience recently? Do teachers feel that wellbeing and mental health are high enough a priority? Have expectations about pupils’ progress changed through the pandemic?