Chamber and committees

Good morning, panel members. First, I remind the committee of my entry in the register of members’ interests, which notes that I am a member of the Humanist Society of Scotland.

A common argument against assisted dying is that it would be the start of a slippery slope, either to an increasing number of people having an assisted death, or to more permissive laws, with expanded eligibility and fewer safeguards. I would like to explore the slippery slope argument with the witnesses. How do you respond to assertions that human rights challenges to the bill are likely and will inevitably lead to an expansion of the legislation?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the progress being made to improve the learning outcomes of pupils to prepare them for careers in the technology sector. (S6O-04175)

I know that the minister will be aware of Education Scotland’s wonderful cyberfirst girls competition, designed to help girls enter the world of cyber technology and security, in which Girvan academy in my constituency recently made the shortlist of 10 finalists. Noting that fantastic achievement, does the minister agree that it is vital that continued support is provided to equip our young girls with those much-needed skills to engage, nurture and inspire them to enter the field of computer sciences, providing them with the skills that Scotland’s technology sector and wider economy will fundamentally depend on?

Do we understand why the PDS is struggling to attract dentists? Is there an issue with the limitations on what they can do in practice versus what other dentists can do in private settings?

Previously, I was a peripatetic homelessness worker. At the time, I was occasionally supported by a health and homelessness nurse. We became aware of how much oral health was at risk in that population. I am very aware of the report “Smile4life: The oral health of homeless people across Scotland”, which was published back in 2011. That was about targeting support for populations who are at the hard edges, have experienced severe and multiple disadvantages and often live with health comorbidities. Will you give us a flavour of how the aims of that report work in practice across the country to improve access to oral health for those who are homeless?

Health boards tell us that public dental services are under pressure but that the service could support resilience when access is challenging. What more can you do to fund and support public dental services to ensure that there is resilience and better equity of access? Was anything in the recent budget statement designed to support that public service?

I bring members’ attention to my entry in the register of members’ interests as a former councillor in East Ayrshire Council.

The committee has received the report that says that the majority of people are in favour of the regulations as set out, but several local authorities raised questions and issues, so I will explore them with the minister.

One of the issues that East Lothian Council brought to the attention of the committee is the requirement to “make safe” versus “repair”. Given that the ultimate responsibility for headstones lies with the lair holder, can we explore that a little? Local authorities say that they have a backlog with regard to bringing headstones up to the required level, as set out in the instruments.

Understanding the need to break down silos is important. If we are thinking about primary prevention, we want to prevent as far upstream as we can, so that people do not experience any of the situations that you described and so that, if they do, they have a pathway to access support for their oral health.

There are more than 10,000 children in temporary accommodation in Scotland, and I have a concern about their access to programmes such as childsmile. Having worked in a women’s refuge, I know that children often change schools repeatedly when they experience homelessness and can move from accommodation to accommodation. Therefore, I have a concern about certain groups of children missing some childsmile provision in a school setting and not getting fluoride sealants applied to their teeth. How can we work with the third sector and other organisations to drive good oral health for groups of children who are perhaps being missed?

I will briefly explore the requirement to “make safe” versus “repair”. Some local authorities were questioning what that actually means. Will further guidance be offered to them in that respect? In my experience, making safe is about staking and tying the headstone so that it will not further deteriorate. Some local authorities are worried that a “repair” requirement means that they will have to undertake actual repair work to the headstones. That would normally be the responsibility of a lair holder but, obviously, some headstones are very old, so there might be nobody who has that responsibility.

Like many feminists of a certain age, I am tired of fighting a system that is so ingrained with inequality that it feels immovable and intransigent. It is as if the glass ceiling is becoming ever more opaque and could soon become the cement ceiling, which means that smashing the patriarchy is that much harder—a task so difficult that it feels impossible—and can make the yearly 16 days campaign feel futile. Then I hear the voices of our young women—my 16-year-old daughter and thousands like her—who raise their fists and their voices, shouting from the rooftops that what is happening today is not okay.

Today, the situation is worse than ever. Our young men are being captured by a pervasive culture of misogynistic hatred, dressed up as the greatest-of-all-time influencers, who peddle a brand of toxic masculinity that is so damaging and all-encompassing that I see clearly that we have gone back in time, to an age in which, daily, women and young girls are subjected openly to hatred in all spheres of their lives.

We need to ask ourselves: how did we get here? How did we empower the likes of Andrew Tate to poison the discourse so insidiously that he has not only taken too many young men with him but succeeded in helping to convince too many young women that feminism and the quest for real equality are damaging to society? How is it that we have left social media unbridled to the extent that we are only a click away from encountering extreme violent pornography that glorifies and normalises strangulation—meaning that our young people are at risk of becoming desensitised to normal, healthy relationships?

Many years ago, as a teenager, I railed against the use of women’s bodies to sell products, due to the damage that it did to women as a whole. Today, the internet age that we live in is dominated by influencers and those who seek to make money in any way possible. My teenage plight seems tame in comparison with the horrors that our young folk navigate every day.