Chamber and committees

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—

I certainly will.

Another point that I want to raise is that these are typically working-class areas. People in areas in my region of Central Scotland are struggling due to the cost of living, childcare costs and being unable to find good skilled jobs. However, most importantly, they feel left behind by local and national Government.

Perhaps Kaukab Stewart would like to pick up on areas where she thinks that her Government has left those communities behind?

To ask the Scottish Government, regarding its role in proposing the scheduling of parliamentary business, how it can help ensure that parliamentary time is used constructively for the remainder of this parliamentary session. (S6O-05031)

Good morning. Before I move on to my questions regarding single building assessments, how many buildings could be contained in a single building assessment? That is important for transparency and making sure that we have the full picture.