Chamber and committees

I have supported the campaign since it began back in the previous session of the Parliament. The work that has been undertaken by Lynne McRitchie and other mums, particularly those in the Motherwell and Wishaw area, can only be commended, because they want what is best for mums, parents and vulnerable babies.

“The Best Start: A Five-Year Forward Plan for Maternity and Neonatal Care in Scotland”, which is not the only plan that relates to neonatal and maternity services, paints a very clouded picture of the provision that is available, what the proposals will mean for new parents and their newborns and what maternity and neonatal services will look like in the future. We have had too many reviews, and the Scottish Government has not implemented their recommendations. Downgrading of neonatal departments—particularly those in my region—is causing concern to a lot of families in those areas.

I still do not understand why the Government has not chosen to have five neonatal specialist departments instead of three. Even now, that has not been properly explained. I do not believe that the Government can continue with the downgrading without assessing all the issues that have been put on the table by the petitioner and by MSPs, who have been seeking clarity and answers to questions for quite some time.

I refer members to my recent question to the Government about when the neonatal departments would be downgraded. I received a response on 1 September, but we still do not have an answer. That puts families in limbo and makes expectant mums fearful about what might happen. If the Government is serious about implementing the best start plan, it must be honest with the mums, children and families who will be impacted.

A lot of things are in limbo, and I do not believe that the petition should be closed when we still have so many unanswered questions. The least that we can do—if we are not fighting the proposals, which I will continue to do—is get answers for the mums and families who will be impacted.

10:30

Not at all. Do you think that, when it comes to age, we talk too frequently about age brackets? As you have said, decisions that are taken now for older people could have unintended consequences down the line for future generations. I do not think that there is sufficient fluidity in the discussions that we have in Parliament with regard to what might happen down the line and how a change that is brought in now might impact future generations. We should treat the issue as an intergenerational issue, rather than taking a siloed approach and looking at it only as one that impacts older people or, say, 18 to 25-year-olds.

Finally, I have a really brief—

My final, brief question is on financial security for older people.

We are now seeing a lot of banking deserts because of the closure of various banks across all our communities. How is that making older people feel? Adam Stachura said that people do not feel safe to go online, and that we have 500,000 people who are not on the internet at all. How do we deal with that issue? It is real and is happening now. As we move forward, we will probably see more closures.

That is helpful. I will broaden it slightly, because I know that a lot of organisations are represented in the meeting. It would be helpful to put on record what each organisation feels would be the benefits of a human rights bill and what additionality they think there would be if a bill was introduced.

Thank you, convener and committee colleagues, for your understanding this morning while I have been dipping in and out to speak at the Public Petitions Committee.

I have a couple of questions for Adam Stachura of Age Scotland in relation to the statistic that he spoke about earlier, because it was quite striking to hear about the number of over-50s who feel unheard by politicians and disengaged from politics, when they should absolutely have a voice, be heard and have their views fed through to the Parliament as much as anyone else. This is a broad question to start with: how do we better engage, and are we doing something wrong?

You raised the issues of health, social care, loneliness, isolation and technology. Tech will be a huge topic that will crop up in the work of many committees in this session of Parliament; I am thinking in particular of the rise in our digital technology age of issues such as artificial intelligence, scams and fraud, all of which could have an impact. How will that impact your members and people whom you engage with through Age Scotland? Are they embracing parts of the digital technology age, or are they worried and concerned because there is more chance of their being the victims of scams or fraud through those channels?

We have spoken a lot about policies that we would like to see being implemented and bills that the committee will be focusing on in its scrutiny work, but we should also emphasise the importance of good legislation. I do not think that we want to end up looking at flawed legislation that ends up being dropped, going nowhere and, as we have seen in previous sessions, unfortunately, in the courts. I will focus on the proposed human rights incorporation bill. There is concern that there could be legal challenges, because the bill could stray into areas of reserved matters and touch on other legislation throughout the UK. John Kirkpatrick, is there a risk of legal challenge if the Government does not get it right?

Thank you, convener—sorry about that.

Incidents such as the ones that I have just described continue to happen. Community safety is not achieved through slogans or vague statements about division and hostility. I would much rather debate visible policing, effective public services, holding dangerous perpetrators accountable and, most importantly, how we protect victims. That is how we restore confidence in politics and trust in Government.

I move amendment S7M-01084.2, to leave out from first “supports” to end and insert:

“believes that the first duty of government is to protect the public and that public safety must never be compromised by political choices, financial pressures or a lack of capacity within the justice system; further believes that there must be consequences for committing crime and that those who commit acts of violence, intimidation, hatred, disorder and other offences must face swift and meaningful punishment; notes concerns that the scale and pace of asylum and immigration arrivals in some communities has placed pressure on local services and community cohesion, and calls on the Scottish Government to review the housing rules which have contributed to that pressure; gives its full support to the police and other law enforcement agencies in taking firm action against those who openly flout the law; rejects early release policies that put dangerous offenders back into communities because of pressure on the prison estate; calls for bail laws to be reviewed so that the protection of victims, particularly women and girls, is given greater weight; condemns unacceptable court delays that leave victims waiting years for justice and undermine confidence in the system; calls for sufficient police numbers and resources to maintain visible, effective frontline policing, and believes that safe and cohesive communities depend on upholding the rule of law and ensuring that criminal behaviour has consequences.”

16:15