Chamber and committees

Good morning, cabinet secretary and others on the panel.

Last week, the committee heard from witnesses that they felt some frustration about the fact that it has taken more than two years for the amendments to come back to Parliament and for discussions on the UNCRC to restart. Why did it take that length of time to bring the bill back for reconsideration? What processes took place during that time, before the amendments were lodged?

I have a question about the concerns that you just raised, Professor Mayson, in relation to the role that the Lord President of the Court of Session would have with the Government if the bill was enacted as it stands. My concern from my first reading of the bill was that it could draw the two of them into a sort of collaborative administration. What would the impact of that be?

In section 20, the phrase,

“Measures open to the Scottish Ministers”,

concerns me, because of the performance targets that could be set and the potential for penalties to be imposed. Is that your understanding? What would the implications be?

Thank you. Perhaps I can throw the same question out to our other witnesses.

Good morning, panel. Thank you very much for joining us today.

My questions relate to the separation of powers and the respective roles of the executive and the judiciary. What are the panel’s views on the Law Society’s arguments that independent regulation could lead to increased costs and threaten the independence of the legal profession? Do you believe that the regulatory committee is a sufficient guarantee of independence? Perhaps I can start with Brian Inkster.

Thank you, convener.

Thank you very much.

A leaked document from staff at a Lanarkshire hospital has shown that senior medics fear for the safety of babies if the specialised centre at the Wishaw neonatal unit is downgraded. Does the minister share my concerns that medics in the facility in Wishaw are concerned about those proposals? As a result, should that be reviewed?

I agree that discussions need to take place around that, because we need to have a whole discussion on the issue of early years. I go back to the point about detail, because many such issues have not been mentioned today. That is why I think that the Government needs to have more open conversations with the whole of the chamber instead of having debates and not really informing us what it is trying to debate during its Government business.

I turn back to the point that I was making with regard to Pregnant Then Screwed. Carol Erskine, its head of policy and campaigns, said:

“there is a price on being a parent today is brutal. It is truly shocking that almost two-thirds of Parents are being forced to reduce their hours or leave the workforce entirely due to the cost and availability of childcare, and there is no end in sight.”

That view is coming not from politicians but from parents who are completely fed up about the fact that the system is working not for them but against them.

That brings me on to nurseries. Like Willie Rennie, I will raise the issue time and again until the Government finally gets it and sorts the problems that exist around the 1,140-hours policy. When we look at the various issues that were mentioned today around the policy, we can see that there are politicians on the SNP benches who get it: Fulton MacGregor and Evelyn Tweed get it, and I praise them for their honest assessment of childcare issues in their communities. Evelyn Tweed is right that rural communities have been left behind when it comes to nursery provision, and they have also been left behind in relation to other issues relating to pregnancy and bringing up a child. We need only look at Dr Gray’s hospital in Moray and the Caithness general hospital to see how hard it is for rural mums to bring up a family.

I realise that time is tight and I do not have much time left. There is much more that I would have liked to mention today, because there have been some really good conversations. Oliver Mundell mentioned speech and language therapy and said that the Government needs to sort those issues out, and Jamie Greene rightly mentioned the issues surrounding child dental care. There are many more issues that we need to resolve in relation to early years development as a whole, but, my goodness, this Government has a long way to go.

Presiding Officer,

“Giving children the best possible start in life”—

those are words that we can all get behind, regardless of where we sit in the Parliament. We have all heard them from the Scottish Government before. In 2009, a similar programme, the early years framework, was launched, which also promised to give

“all our children the best start in life.”

That leads me to Willie Rennie’s earlier point about rhetoric. It is all well and good for the Government to launch documents and programmes that intend to improve the lives of children and young people. However, what are its aims? What will the Government do, in addition to the policies that are already in place, to make such improvements? How will success be measured? Those are key questions that I am not sure have been answered in the debate.

I reflect on a quote from the Government motion, part of which my colleague Jamie Greene picked out earlier. The Government states that

“it can build on the targeted investments that it has already made in support of families pre-birth to three and that joint working can create a culture, environment, economy and society that prioritises and enhances early child development, to realise its ambition of creating a more healthy, fair and equal society”.

Joint working with whom? And how will joint working lead to the creation of a more healthy, fair and equal society? Detail is everything if the Government wants people to come with it on its early years journey.

The minister mentioned Government policies that are already in place. Some of them are good and some—well, we will leave that for later. However, when will we see the outcomes? Martin Whitfield was spot on when he mentioned data, and I am beyond fed up with the Government’s lack of data capture, especially across portfolios. Carol Mochan mentioned that during her speech.

Throughout the debate, we have travelled through the stages of raising a child, from pregnancy to early years, and policies and ambitions have been mentioned. However, as Oliver Mundell has rightly said, we are falling at the first hurdle. That was evidenced just last week during First Minister’s question time, when I asked the First Minister about the Pregnant Then Screwed campaign. The First Minister had no answers for parents who have had to reduce their hours or leave the workforce because work and childcare are incompatible. He has no answers for the 43 per cent of parents who cannot afford to have any more children. It has already been forecast that the number of births will drop over the next decade. The Government needs to realise that current policies are not working for parents but are working against them.

Does the member agree that it would also be helpful if before today’s debate, Opposition parties had been made privy to what the programme would actually mean for young people?