Chamber and committees

I congratulate Craig Hoy on securing this important debate on bank closures.

Banks are more than just buildings; they are the focal point of our communities. The bank is where local businesses deposit their takings, where elderly residents manage their finances in person and where people can ask for advice or seek reassurance without resorting to an app or waiting in a frustrating telephone queue. In my region of Central Scotland, Bank of Scotland has announced the closure of branches in Bellshill, Larkhall and Grangemouth. I must declare an interest at this point, as I am a Bank of Scotland account holder and a customer of the Bellshill branch.

It is the perception of local people that banks are deciding on their behalf how customers should bank, and that is simply not acceptable. There are petitions under way across the region in an attempt to save those banks from closure in January 2026, and I urge residents in affected areas to look at those petitions and make their voices heard by signing them and opposing those closures.

Last Monday, I joined Councillor Richard Nelson, who organised a public meeting in the Larkhall area, to talk about how the community can work together to stop the closure. Banking hubs were mentioned, but it will come as no surprise to members in the chamber that, again, a banking hub for Larkhall has been refused.

I felt that the public meeting was very productive, and I note that the petition started by Councillor Nelson has already attracted more than 500 signatures. If Davy Russell would be so kind as to sign that petition and share it, we can work cross-party to stop the closure of the Bank of Scotland branch in Larkhall. The petition shows the level of interest from local people in stopping the expansion of bank deserts across Lanarkshire and other areas.

One petitioner who signed the petition has commented publicly that,

“As a pensioner with a husband who has dementia it’s difficult enough to deal with daily life without having to travel further afield to use a bank or lift money. I live in Stonehouse and have to travel to Larkhall to use a bank and now you are going to close it, I and my husband have banked with you for over 65 years and I hope you will reconsider and keep this branch open or better still give us a banking hub in Stonehouse”.

That petitioner is absolutely bang on the money with the points that she has raised.

Another interesting point that was raised during the public meeting was the semi-rurality of the area when it comes to residents in Lanarkshire trying to use public transport to reach the next nearest town where a bank has not been earmarked for closure. Only 32 per cent of households in Ashgill and Netherburn, and 45 per cent in central Larkhall, are within a 10-minute walk of high-frequency public transport, so closing the Larkhall branch will increase travel barriers for people. In my view, few or no impact assessments have been carried out on deprivation, digital exclusion or proximity to the nearest local branch.

Councillor Nelson has since written to Lloyds Banking Group asking for the decision to be reviewed. I back his calls and will continue to work with him and the local community to overturn the decision.

Turning briefly to the bank closure in Bellshill, I note that Lanarkshire Law Estate Agents, a firm of estate agents and solicitors, has picked up the mantle and started a petition, which, again, has attracted well over 500 signatures. I put on the record my thanks to the firm for the work that it is doing on behalf of the Bellshill community.

I want to close on this point: banking groups will lose custom if they continue to close branches in areas, as people have had enough of being forced to go digital by going cashless. That is why I back the calls today from my colleague, Craig Hoy, in seeking to raise the issue of bank closures and the need to investigate solutions to ensure that Scotland does not become a banking desert.

Given that ministers approved an impact assessment that included only two accommodation providers operating below the VAT threshold and therefore failed to reflect the reality that is faced by small businesses, which make up the backbone of Scotland’s accommodation sector, does the Deputy First Minister at the very least accept that the current issues around introducing a flat-rate visitor levy could have been avoided if ministers had done their jobs properly and provided a robust, representative BRIA in the first place?

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding the potential impact on businesses and the economy, what steps it is taking to ensure that business and regulatory impact assessments properly reflect the real-world impact of new policies on small and medium-sized enterprises. (S6O-05059)

The cabinet secretary will be aware that I, alongside other colleagues in the Parliament, have campaigned to stop the downgrading of Wishaw general’s neonatal department. The Scottish Government might wish to use the term “centralisation”, but the removal of specialist services from a neonatal department is downgrading. That is not misinformation—it is a fact.

I have also campaigned to secure overnight accommodation for parents of babies in neonatal wards, as there are not enough beds at present. That is another area in which the Scottish Government has not acted quickly enough.

Will the cabinet secretary confirm that the new task force will—as Jackie Baillie called for it to do—undertake a review of the best start model, with a view to having five specialist neonatal units as opposed to three? Can he give an update on the number of beds that are available for parents who need to stay with their babies in neonatal departments across Scotland?

Families of residents at a sheltered housing complex in Falkirk are deeply concerned about plans to outsource care services to an external provider. The proposals, which would remove the round-the-clock care service at Tygetshaugh Court, form part of an effort to address the £21 million budget shortfall. Families were not properly consulted, and local councillors have expressed frustration about their lack of influence over decisions that are made by the integration joint board. Should decisions that directly impact local communities be made by councillors or by an IJB in which the majority are unelected?

I agree, and I certainly will be talking about why the Government should listen to people in communities up and down Scotland who believe that illegal immigration is a huge concern. That is why the Scottish Conservatives have brought two debates to the chamber on illegal immigration in recent weeks.

I understand that parties do not want to discuss the issue and want to swerve the difficult discussions, but I must say that the response from the cabinet secretary when Russell Findlay tried to intervene was nothing less than arrogant and dogmatic. That showed how we should not debate illegal immigration in the chamber. If we want to solve the problems, we need to be able to debate them. We cannot ignore the argument or the distrust that we are seeing in our communities.

As Russell Findlay said, it is not racist to talk about immigration. Our constituents expect us to talk about issues, no matter how difficult the conversation is, and that is what we are trying to do. There is growing unrest in our country, and it is not simply about immigration; it is about neglect, which is a point on which I actually agree with Maggie Chapman.

The Government has spent years undermining its own public services, only to now ask struggling communities to take on even more pressure through immigration without consultation or transparency, and without putting in valid support networks.

The minister will be aware that it has taken 53 months to get through more than 40 bills, yet Holyrood is now expected to get through more than 20 bills in just six months. If we want good, well-scrutinised legislation through a process that offers Opposition members and back benchers as well as Government members the time to debate it, that needs to be planned well in advance. It cannot come at the expense in particular of MSPs with young families and caring responsibilities, because that goes against the premise that the Parliament was to be family friendly.

Does the minister accept that he will need to relook at the matter and see whether bills will be able to progress all the way to stage 3? Alternatively, is it the case that MSPs will be sitting late into the night, which might not produce legislation that will be beneficial for the people of Scotland?

You pressed the intervention button.

That is a reserved issue. We are talking about the strains on public services in relation to illegal immigration in this country.

If Kaukab Stewart wants to talk about reserved matters, particularly the ECHR, which I think is an important issue, let us talk about that. A detailed report on that was produced not by a politician but by Lord Wolfson, who is one of the leading King’s counsel in the country. The report said that legal immigration is too high and must come down and that illegal immigration is too high and must come down.

The report also talked about the problems with the ECHR. I am actually looking for a bit of consensus with the minister, because I hope that she would agree that, when there are situations such as that of a convicted paedophile in Glasgow who was prevented from being deported back to the Democratic Republic of Congo because of his right to family life, that shows that there are problems with the ECHR. I hope that the minister is able to agree with me on that point.

I will go back to my point about public services. The Government has let NHS waiting times spiral out of control, has failed to address chronic teacher shortages in crumbling schools and has allowed councils to carry the burden of rising costs with shrinking budgets. That is the neglect that we are talking about. I therefore cannot understand why the Greens continually support the SNP Government when it comes to budgets and coalition Governments. The Government has failed. It has had 18 years to address public service issues in this country and has failed.

I will finish on a point that I have been raising continually over the past few weeks. We have heard the term “community cohesion” a few times. I believe that the Government is serious about community cohesion and wants to try to stop the protests and look at ways in which we can have a more blended community, which is something that I hope everyone would be able to agree with. However, the Government has not been able to maintain the cohesion of public services, which is where the fundamental problems come in.

What do people see in Falkirk, which is in my region? They see hotels filled with asylum seekers at short notice, without a consultation process.

I return to the issue of the demographics of the people who have been arriving, which I have raised before. Across the UK, 62 per cent of asylum seeker claims are from adult males, compared with 21 per cent from adult females. For small boat arrivals, the imbalance is even greater: 75 per cent are adult men and 10 per cent are children. Compare that with the Ukrainian adults who arrived in the UK under the sponsorship and family schemes, most of whom—70 per cent—were women. Ukrainian men aged 18 to 60 were not allowed to leave Ukraine. Of all arrivals under those schemes, 27 per cent were under the age of 18.

We need to look at that, because that is what people see, and it is where the anger and distrust are coming from. People are seeing their own needs—their own families, schools and hospitals—pushed further down the priority list.

The SNP Government has had 18 years to fix our public services, and it has failed. That is why we are seeing discontent and distrust in our country.

Thank you, Presiding Officer—