Chamber and committees

Thank you for joining us this morning. I am really interested in co-production and regional forums. Have any of you or your staff been along to any of the regional forums? It would be really interesting to hear about any feedback and learning from that. What are your thoughts on co-production and co-design and how they can achieve transformational change?

Thank you very much.

That is fantastic. It is good to hear that there is that positive commitment and shared focus.

I congratulate Collette Stevenson on securing this important debate. I, too, thank the Poverty Alliance for its tireless and passionate campaign to end poverty.

Poverty robs people of choices and the chance to lead fulfilling and dignified lives. It basically strips the joy right out of our lives. Sadly, more than 1 million Scots are grappling with poverty, and almost half of those people are living in deep poverty. Others, who could never have imagined struggling with poverty just a few short years ago, now find themselves having to make unimaginable choices between eating, heating and keeping clean. No one should have to compromise their dignity in a country as affluent and resource rich as ours. The inequality that prevails across the UK is nothing short of scandalous, as we have already heard.

The Scottish Women’s Budget Group 2023 report, “Experiences of rising costs across Scotland”, highlights that women are often the shock absorber of poverty in their households, with women commonly cutting back on life’s essentials in order to better provide for their children. A fifth of women surveyed were skipping meals, and just under half were not replacing clothes and shoes. One woman said that the changes that she had made personally did not apply to the children, and that they do not go without healthy meals and showers.

However, despite those selfless acts, women cannot break the relentless cycle of poverty, and the associated mental stresses often have far-reaching consequences. Poverty rates are higher among lone parents, too, and 92 per cent of those parents are women.

When someone has a single source of income, limited job flexibility and childcare costs, and is confronted with Westminster’s cruel two-child benefit policy in a universal credit system that is described as an “insufficient means of livelihood”, the pressures of being the sole provider are often crippling and isolating. That holds particularly true for mums and parents under 25 years old—Collette Stevenson referred to this earlier—who also lose out on £75 of universal credit per month just because of their age. One young single mother said:

“I don’t understand how someone over 25 gets more for being in exactly the same situation that I am.”

I find it hard to disagree with her.

This year, one of the Poverty Alliance’s calls is for fair and sustainable funding for third sector organisations. We know the significant contribution that our third sector makes to support our most vulnerable communities, with many of them also actively targeting the gendered nature of poverty and the structural inequalities that undermine women.

I spoke recently to One Parent Families Scotland, which provides vital support to lone parents and children in Lanarkshire, where I live, and across Scotland. It offers a telephone helpline that is highly valued by communities. However, the organisation told me that calls for advice are increasingly becoming emergency crisis calls, as more and more families reach a cliff edge. Its resources are being spread even thinner.

I am certainly proud that eradicating child poverty is a core commitment of Scotland’s programme for government and that our Scottish child payment is a world first—a game changer, as we have heard. However, we must still strive to support our invaluable third sector in every way that we can, despite the financial challenges that our Government and the Parliament face.

My constituents have raised concerns that they are not receiving up-to-date information about the changes that are happening at their local GP surgeries. It is my understanding that the Scottish general practitioners committee previously identified that as an issue and called on the Scottish Government to educate the public on changes in GP practices.

Are there any steps that the Scottish Government can take to support GPs to amplify the “Right care, right place” message and provide their patients with impactful communications that explain what to expect from their GP primary care team, how to access the right health professionals directly and any changes in the day-to-day operations of practices?

To ask the Scottish Government when it last engaged with the Scottish general practitioners committee and what was discussed. (S6O-02597)

That is a great example. Thank you very much.

Good morning, minister. You have touched on some of this already, but what is the Scottish Government doing to support local authorities and health and social care partnerships with the current and immediate issues in social care and to support provision, including, for example, on staffing and capacity?

You are absolutely right. I am sure that we can all agree on how valuable social care is, and the pathways that you spoke about are so important, too.

I would like to ask you about the end of life. Not everyone will recover, and a substantial portion of the current health and social care budget is spent on caring for people who are approaching the end of life. At a previous committee meeting, Mark Hazelwood, the chief executive of the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care, called for changes to the principles of the bill to include end-of-life care. How will the national care service be developed to respond to the growing need for palliative and end-of-life care? How are co-designed forums informing that approach?

Are you getting the feedback to help to inform the charter through the national care service forums or is there more work to be done in that area?