Chamber and committees

The women’s health plan that was launched in 2021 marked a significant commitment to addressing the distinct health needs of women across Scotland and aimed to close gaps in care, improve health outcomes and promote health equity. The very existence of that plan has brought much-needed attention to issues that have historically been sidelined and significantly underfunded.

The plan recognised that taking a dedicated approach to women’s health is essential for the wellbeing of women and of our wider communities. It also acknowledged that there is an urgent need for societal and cultural shifts in attitudes to women’s health and that much more must be done to address the long-standing health inequalities that women face. It set out a way to achieve those lasting changes, and I welcome the updates that we have received throughout the life of the plan. The final report that is the topic of today’s debate sets out the important progress that has been made and raises the areas in which work is still to be done.

A number of commitments, and the significant progress that has been made towards them, should be celebrated. I am a little embarrassed to say that, when preparing the “progress” section of this speech, I forgot to mention my own act of Parliament. That might be because it is in my nature to want to move on and do the next thing. I thank the minister for her kind words about my Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act 2024. I also thank the Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport for her kind words when she had the women’s health role, as well as thanking the ministerial teams, the campaigners, and those with lived experience who gave evidence.

No one will be surprised to hear that I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment in the plan to review abortion law and its recognition of the importance of having a legal framework that reflects both current practice and the needs of patients and healthcare professionals. Parliament has rightly acknowledged abortion as part of healthcare for those who need it. Law reform is not the only area in which abortion care must progress: late-stage abortion and the recruitment of staff who can carry that out must also be addressed.

I hope that the law review will carefully examine the gaps and inadequacies in current legislation, assess the need for changes and consider how to bring about concrete change. However, that process must be urgent. There is no room for delay, and I hope that we will see progress and a clear path being set out to achieve that before the end of the session. Scotland needs a responsive and timely approach to the issue.

I feel that, so far, the plan has involved a genuinely collaborative approach. The meetings that we have had with ministers and the women’s health champion, Professor Glasier, have been informative, but they have also felt like a genuine dialogue. Although I will move on to discuss some things that we should be doing better on or looking at, I will do so in the context of genuine collaboration and making progress for women. I am pleased to hear that Professor Glasier has agreed to stay on as the women’s health champion.

Dr—

Dr Coelho, what are the key considerations and challenges that we should be looking at here in Scotland?

Good evening. In 2019, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities expressed significant concerns about Canada’s approach to medical assistance in dying, particularly from a disability perspective. She noted the absence of a protocol to ensure that people with disabilities were offered viable alternatives before considering assisted dying. That concern was heightened when the federal Government passed bill C-7 in 2021, which relaxed safeguards for patients eligible for MAID, including the removal of the 10-day waiting period and the requirement to offer palliative care options. Most recently, the Office of the Chief Coroner of Ontario published the “MAiD Death Review Committee Report 2024”, which indicated that many individuals are seeking MAID due to factors that are unrelated to medical illness, such as homelessness and isolation, with MAID access notably higher in economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Given the alarm that has been generated worldwide by Canada’s experience, do you believe that characterisation to be accurate, and have specific protocols or safeguards been introduced to prevent individuals from turning to MAID due to a lack of social support or access to complex care? I ask Dr Green to comment first.

Thank you. I ask our witnesses to focus on the content of my second question and to keep their answers as succinct as possible, because I know that other members want to come in. I am interested to hear your perspectives on the key challenges that Canada faced in adopting its approach. How might we in Scotland learn from those experiences as we work to develop our own legislation?

Yes.

No. I would like to hear about the key considerations and challenges that Canada faced in adopting its approach and how we might learn from those in Scotland.

I thank all members who signed the motion and so enabled this debate to happen. Before I go into detail about the motion, I extend my thanks to the many parents across North Lanarkshire who have contacted me to share their personal experiences of how the proposed cuts will affect their families. They include Laura, Jim, Leonna, Diane, Lorraine and Kerry Anne, who join us in the public gallery today. The determination, commitment and continuous campaigning by those parents has been inspiring and uplifting, and it should be a reminder of the power and importance of local issues.

Some 590 parents have signed the petition to overturn the decision to reduce the number of children’s school buses across North Lanarkshire. The decision is a disaster for children’s safety. I hope that North Lanarkshire Council and the Scottish Government can take immediate action to deliver a workable solution.

For background, for those members who represent other areas of the country, I highlight that in North Lanarkshire, local councillors have implemented cuts to school buses for secondary pupils by increasing the qualifying distance that children have to live from their school from two miles to three miles, and have also proposed a similar approach for primary schools, with the qualifying distance moving from one mile to two miles. That will have a significant impact on a large number of young children, causing them to rely on their parents to drive them to and from school every day. Families and teachers from across the region have already spoken out against the decision.

It is clear that these cuts will put children’s safety at risk by packing more cars on to the already crowded streets around school grounds—areas where children are walking and cycling in large numbers. It will also increase pollution and carbon emissions around schools at a time when we are becoming increasingly aware of the damage that that can cause, and it will add an extra burden on parents and carers, who are already struggling.

It is already having an impact on secondary schools, with some reporting an increase of up to 30 per cent in the number of cars, with pupils leaving the campuses to get to parents’ cars, which are waiting in queues, and pupils having to walk along the grass verges of dual carriageways. How on earth can anyone think that that is safe?

My inbox has been inundated with correspondence from parents, teachers and members of the local community, who are rightly very concerned about children’s welfare. I have had particularly moving conversations with parents of children with additional support needs, who rely heavily on their school buses and the importance of routine that the school bus allows their children. I will share some words from a parent to whom I spoke recently. She said:

“My child doesn’t have social awareness or safety awareness due to his autism. On walking from home to school, he would need to cross two very busy main roads and cross through a park which another high school sits at.

On Hamilton Road there is a gap of roughly half a mile between traffic lights to get safely across the road, and on Airbles road the distance is longer. He wouldn’t be able to process when was best to cross the road between traffic which would lead to a breakdown with anxiety over how to get across.

It’s the same with trying to access public transport. Most buses are either full or nearing capacity when they reach his stop. The heightened noise on the buses would be over stimulating for him and this could also lead to a stressful and traumatic experience.

I believe there has been a gap in understanding of the needs of all children with Additional Support Needs and not just the ones with mobility issues.”

I absolutely agree that the guidance on safe walking routes is a matter for the council, but because the council is using the Scottish Government’s school transport guidance as an excuse, does the member not think that we should tighten that up to make sure that it cannot be used by another council to make the same decision that North Lanarkshire Council has made?

There has been an element of consultation in some places—the parents definitely do not think that it is enough—but in others, schools were told that they did not have to engage with the consultation process, and then found that their buses had been cut, so I agree with Mr Kerr on that point.

It has been suggested by members of the local authority that children and young people should simply use the service buses instead. However, we have had reports of buses not stopping, and of buses that are overly busy. In some places, there is only one bus an hour, and if it is full, children face a long walk or a wait outside school for the next one. North Lanarkshire Council says that it is following Scottish Government guidance, but there seems to be no consistency across local authorities as to how that is being interpreted.

As an MSP from the Scottish Green party, which proudly introduced free bus travel for everyone under 22, I find the suggestion that children as young as four years old should use public transport as an alternative to their school bus to be concerning. Since the scheme was introduced, thousands of young people have benefited, taking more than 50 million bus journeys, and it has saved family members money during a cost of living crisis. However, it should not be used to plug gaps.

Yesterday, I walked one of the proposed walking routes with parents and pupils in Motherwell. I sincerely hope that other members will take up the opportunity to walk the route; I know that some have already been out, and the parents were really pleased by the support. The route is simply not safe. We walked along busy roads and narrow paths, and over broken glass. One of the children told me that they would not be comfortable walking the route without an adult because they did not feel safe.

We, as politicians, try to put across arguments in a compelling way, but it is only fitting that the final words of my speech are from one of the pupils who has been affected. Ella, who is 10 and from Motherwell, sent me a video detailing the challenges as she sees them. She said:

“The people in charge of North Lanarkshire Council have decided to stop our school buses in order to save money. I don’t think this is fair. It’s the wrong decision.

The school bus gets lots of children to school safely and on time. If I didn’t get the school bus, I’d need to walk a really long way in the rain to and from school. Between my house and school, there are big dangerous roads that are especially dangerous for young children like my brother and sister. They’d be tired and cold before we even get to school. 129 children from our school will lose their bus next year. I worry that our school campus will get really busy and dangerous with lots more cars.

This is also bad for climate change. I thought grown-ups were trying to stop as many cars being used on the road. Then why take away our buses? It doesn’t make sense. I want the grown-ups in charge to put our safety first before saving money.”

I share Ella’s concerns. The proposed cuts will put children’s safety at risk by packing in even more cars. For some parents, having to take children to or from school will cause more hassle in the mornings, as they will be trying to get children to both secondary and primary schools because of the cut to the buses.