Chamber and committees

I, too, place on the record my deep appreciation for Gillian Mackay’s tireless work in getting her important bill to this stage. Its significance is monumental. I thank her team and the committee, and I thank Back Off Scotland for the pressure that was brought to bear by its resolute activities, the brave women and staff and the Humanist Society Scotland, which has ensured that women’s rights to access healthcare have been vocally championed. I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I am a member of the Humanist Society.

Abortion care is healthcare, and women must have the right to access such care without fear of, and with freedom from, intimidation, harassment or public judgment. That core belief of mine was formed when, as a 15-year-old in Quebec, I watched as a fellow female citizen named Chantale Daigle was blocked from abortion care by her ex-partner when he sought and was granted an injunction. I protested in the streets of Montreal as she took her case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, ultimately winning and securing women’s rights across the country.

With the reversal of the landmark Roe v Wade judgment in the United States and with women’s rights increasingly being impacted globally, we must resist anything that interferes with us exercising our hard-fought-for rights. We must be able to exercise our bodily autonomy without anyone else seeking to persuade us or influence us as we approach a facility for care or, indeed, after we leave. No service user, nor the providers of such care, should have to run a gauntlet of protesters as they access an abortion care facility.

Everyone has the right to agree or disagree with abortion but, fundamentally, that is not the issue that we are dealing with here. The bill is about the right and ability of women to access that type of healthcare free from the fear of being publicly shamed or judged, as women have been for millennia.

I am fully aware that the bill also has at its heart the balancing of rights under the European convention on human rights, specifically the rights and freedoms of religion or belief, expression and assembly, and the right to respect for family and private life.

As has been said, it is important that we look to the recent unanimous decision by the UK Supreme Court, which ruled that the safe access zone legislation that was passed in Northern Ireland is fully compatible with protesters’ convention rights. In a very detailed legal analysis, the judgment examined the well-versed argument that convention rights are sacrosanct and the much-touted unlimited free speech argument. Rights are often misrepresented in that way, but it has always been the case that convention rights can be legally restricted in a proportionate way in certain contexts to achieve a legitimate aim.

As was underlined by the Supreme Court, abortion is legal as a result of democratic decision making, and opponents of such legal healthcare cannot be given unfettered access or an ability to harass or intimidate individuals or healthcare providers who are going about their daily life or work. Indeed, there is no legitimate reason for protesters to take their protest to outside abortion clinics. To do so represents an attempt to undermine the rights of individuals to whom the Parliament has given legal rights to abortion care, and to create a climate of fear to dissuade them from accessing necessary healthcare.

Much was said at stage 2 about silent prayer and policing of thoughts. The bill in no way seeks to criminalise prayer or thoughts; it seeks to curtail activities that go beyond unobtrusive silent prayer or indeed legitimate chaplaincy services. For much of history, women have been subjected to having people standing in judgment of them, silently or otherwise. We cannot ignore the profound impact of walking past those who choose to stand in judgment. As the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee heard in evidence,

“One person’s idea of engaging in silent prayer can look very different to the person on the other side who is alone and accessing healthcare.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 27 February 2024; c 18.]

We must bring it firmly back to intent: what are the intentions of those who are gathered?

It is my hope that today, across the chamber, we can all support Gillian Mackay’s Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Bill. I have been heartened by the collective working that has been demonstrated thus far, both at the committee stages and today. The bill is not an attempt to restrict freedom of expression or religion but aims to safeguard public health and to protect the right of women to access healthcare without obstruction. Women deserve no less.

Good morning. I am interested in the interaction between farmed salmon and wild salmon populations, and the potential risks around that.

The Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee recommended that a proportionate approach should be taken to minimise that risk. The panel members have already spoken a little bit this morning about the risk from sea lice, and I am thinking about introgression of genetic material as well. John Aitchison, has a precautionary approach been applied?

The committee is aware that WildFish and the Coastal Communities Network have submitted a complaint to Environmental Standards Scotland about SEPA’s sea lice regulatory framework, which has already been touched on. Would you like to add anything about why you have submitted that complaint and what your key concerns are?

I have another question. [Interruption.] Sorry—the dog walker has just brought my dog home. You can see it walking on the back of the couch.

Does anybody want to comment on the issue of escaped farmed salmon’s interaction with the wild salmon population? It is a multifaceted situation.

To ask the Scottish Government what its assessment is of any impact that Brexit is having on Scotland’s culture sector. (S6O-03522)

A few years into the disaster that is Brexit, we are better placed to assess and even measure lost opportunities. Will the cabinet secretary outline any analysis of the damage done to brand Scotland and our status as a leading nation for culture by the impact of Brexit on performers and artists?

Through modelling, the Scottish Government has found that devolved interventions such as the Scottish child payment and free school meal provision might be keeping an estimated 100,000 children out of poverty this year. Do the findings of the progress report support that estimate? Is the cabinet secretary confident that Scottish Government policies are changing hundreds of thousands of lives for the better and that that would not be happening if those measures were not in place?

I am passionate about early intervention and prevention across all systems that impact on our health and wellbeing, individually and collectively as a nation. I believed in that ethos before Dr Campbell Christie’s commission, and it has been the guiding principle for all that I have done in the past decade.

The Government’s motion puts early intervention and prevention and public service reform at its heart. We cannot deny the fact that the Scottish Government has increased the NHS workforce by nearly 25 per cent since 2006. We also cannot deny that, despite 14 years of austerity and inconsistent funding flowing from Westminster, the Scottish Government is, this year, providing a record £19.5 billion for health and social care budgets. However, we cannot fail to recognise that the entire health and social care system urgently needs to be reformed, because, despite record staffing levels and record funding, people in our communities are still dealing with health inequalities and access difficulties. That means that we need to engage in an open and honest national discussion about what we want and need from our health and social care system and how we will navigate the systems and culture changes that are urgently needed. That need has been exacerbated by Covid and Brexit.

Yesterday, I chaired a round-table discussion at Girvan community hospital that was attended by cross-party MSPs, local councillors, community organisations and statutory services. The meeting was brought about by the untimely death of a much-loved local man who passed away despite the heroic efforts of locals, including two off-duty paramedics who worked valiantly for 50 minutes before the ambulance that was drafted in from Kilmarnock arrived. With a lot of unease in the community about access to emergency care, a letter was sent to elected members and statutory services to bring the tragic loss to our attention.

In Girvan and the surrounding villages and hamlets of South Carrick, there is a resilient population that is used to working collectively to deal with the rurality of their lives. They have excellent community groups, including the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a community fire station and community paramedics, and there are many defibrillators across the area. Neighbours look out for and look after one another, with the deep-held belief that, in their time of need, the state will look after them.

I cannot determine whether the man’s life would have been saved had an ambulance attended within the target time, but, if it had, the family and the community would have known that all had been done for him.

Yesterday’s round-table discussion was wide ranging and hard hitting. We all realise that there are profound equalities issues in rural areas when it comes to accessing health and social care services and, indeed, many other public services. There was an acceptance that an ambulance cannot sit in the South Carrick area in case there is a critical incident requiring its attendance across the rest of Ayrshire, but it remains the case that, when the Girvan ambulance is pulled away, that leaves a vast area without life-saving cover close at hand.

We discussed the innovation that has been undertaken by the locality partnership to bring as many NHS services to the Girvan area as possible within the community hospital and health centre. There was a discussion about the learning from successful area-based shared-working models, such as the one in place in Dalmellington in East Ayrshire and, more recently, the one in Dumfries and Galloway. Both of those models involve looking across all systems, including those relating to housing, access to social security, access to exercise, and healthy food and wellbeing via reductions in poverty and social isolation at all stages of life.

The community conversation yesterday is exactly the type of conversation that we need to have across Scotland. We need to move the discussions away from resting only with decision makers and put them firmly into our town halls and community centres. We need to ensure that community assets are recognised and utilised to maximum effect. We need to move the dial towards investing much more in early intervention and prevention to ensure that our children and their children are able to live long, happy and healthy lives.

I am concerned by the rhetoric in the current political debate, which seems to point to very little increased funding for our public services, including the NHS. It feels more like we will be short-changed, rather than any real change occurring.

If we want to truly create a health and social care service that will support an ageing population and deal with entrenched health inequalities, which were exacerbated by the Covid pandemic, with comorbidities increasing, all spheres of government need to recognise that resources must be made available to innovate and intervene early on. Without investment in early intervention and transformation that is supported by everyone, we will not achieve our collective goal of a robust and resilient health service that is there at the point of need for everyone.

To ask the Scottish Government what funding it provided to East and South Ayrshire councils in 2023-24 for discretionary housing payments. (S6O-03501)

Statistics that were released this week show that more than 135,000 awards were delivered across Scotland for discretionary housing payments in 2023-24, with more than 4,000 in East Ayrshire and more than 3,300 in South Ayrshire. As they are our main tool for mitigating harmful United Kingdom Government welfare policies, such as the bedroom tax, can the minister comment on the importance of discretionary housing payments as a means to prevent vulnerable households being driven into homelessness in Scotland? How can we promote their uptake?