Chamber and committees

Does the minister agree that it is a matter of regret that Transport Scotland asked Network Rail to abandon full dual tracking of the line, which would have enabled a turn-up-and-go frequency of four trains an hour? That will not be achievable on a single-track route.

It is certainly not language that I would have used. With the complexity and sophistication of the integration effort in the city, Glasgow is a very good demonstration of how we avoid people becoming strangers. In 2001, when I was 12 years old, a Kurdish refugee was murdered in Sighthill. I remember the community discord that existed at that time. There was a danger that Glasgow could become a city riven by racial strife, but the effort that the community put in to rebuild trust and to establish connection stands as a powerful example.

I hope that, across Scotland and the wider United Kingdom, we can learn a positive lesson from that experience in Glasgow. In places where settled and established relationships have been built over time, the sense of hostility to migration abates. It is important that we learn the right lessons from our experience in Glasgow. We can teach our neighbours across the UK a lot in that regard.

When it comes to what we can do around Europe, I think that our efforts must be centred on defence and security. Mr Cole-Hamilton mentioned our recent trip to Ukraine. In the context of American isolationism, the European Union is becoming critical to our common defence and security. Previously, that was an area of policy that was largely confined to NATO. It is important that Scotland, with its defence and technological capabilities and its economic capacity, steps up and plays its role in supporting our European colleagues. I think that we can do a lot with Ukraine on a bilateral basis to build that capability. I make that constructive suggestion for the cabinet secretary’s consideration.

Does the member accept that every level of government has a part to play in promoting cohesion, particularly in the context of several cities in Scotland having a housing emergency and continued inward migration, which may create community tensions? It is the duty of the Government to recognise the opportunity of that, to build our way out of it and to bring people together instead of creating further discord.

The commissioner’s job is to look at systemic issues. Nonetheless, whistleblowers will be an important factor in identifying issues of a systemic nature that can be investigated and they will possibly form a trigger for investigation. I am sure that the commissioner will exercise their judgment accordingly. I encourage any member of the public who has concerns to engage with the commissioner.

The member makes a fair point in some respects. Nonetheless, significant and important parts of our economy are contingent on the export of and trade in goods. Similarly, a lot of services rely on physical interaction—for example, healthcare provision requires physical interaction. There are instances in which that is still very important and, if we impede any of that, the net effect is that it causes problems for our common prosperity. That is why it remains logical that we continue to remove barriers to trade, where possible, at every level, whether that is by building better infrastructure locally or improving our trading relationships internationally.

I found the whole period when the previous Conservative UK Government was in power utterly obnoxious—it frequently used hostile rhetoric about the European Union and blamed Europe in an abstract sense for the challenges of trade disruption, inflation and labour shortages that followed Brexit, which was, when we boil it down, based on an utter lie and an impossible trinity of issues.

Three promises were made as a result of the Brexit proposition: that we would leave the single market and the customs union; that we would have no border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland; and that we would have no border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It was impossible to achieve all those things. In effect, a border, in all but name, was put down the Irish Sea. That is how the previous UK Government cobbled together a Brexit deal. It covered its obnoxious, wrong-headed and illogical approach with hostile rhetoric about the European Union.

There is no doubt that the EU was a useful scapegoat for the previous UK Government’s woeful handling of issues at home, not least the appalling and destructive austerity programme that it introduced in 2010. The Conservative Government’s approach was hugely damaging—as well as being damaging for our economy and the businesses that rely on exporting to our number 1 trading partner, it led to falling living standards, a deep frustration that improvements were not possible and, in working-class communities in particular, a deep alienation that persists to this day. All parties have not been honest enough about the trade-offs that are required to overcome the challenges that this country faces.

The handling of the so-called Brexit trilemma and the cobbled-together, threadbare deal that Boris Johnson’s Administration arrived at undoubtedly harmed the Scottish economy, and repairing that damage will take some time. Even today, the leader of the Conservatives at Westminster continues on the same tracks, by indulging in hostile rhetoric about the European Union to fire up the party’s Eurosceptic base and vowing to rip up the forthcoming deal with the EU, even though she has not seen the detail of that, as it is at a Government-to-Government stage. I hope that further collaboration will emerge. I am just glad that those vandals are no longer in charge of what is going on.

Just as we have seen from the Conservatives, we have also seen what I feel are rather unfair attempts to manipulate for political convenience the relationship that the Labour Government is trying to build with Europe. It is trying to forge deeper and stronger ties on a bilateral basis. I recall the difficulty that we had back in 2019, when I was a member of the House of Commons, in trying to navigate the Brexit situation. I received a very robust apprenticeship in parliamentary politics when Parliament was trying to navigate the Brexit dilemma after the country had voted to leave the EU in a very simplistic, binary way. We had to work out how to distil that down into a workable set of proposals. There were a number of indicative votes.

The commissioner’s remit covers all healthcare providers that are operating in Scotland, including the national health service and NHS-contracted and independent healthcare providers. The commissioner will work collaboratively with other organisations to improve patient safety, adding value to the patient safety system in Scotland.

The commissioner’s role will not duplicate the work of existing organisations. The commissioner will take a macro-level view of patient safety in Scotland and seek to improve overall safety rather than address individual cases.

Our nominee, Karen Titchener, has more than two decades of senior leadership experience within the national health service and is widely recognised as a national and international authority in complex care that is delivered in the home, including acute hospital-level care, palliative care and end-of-life services. Karen has been working in the United States since 2017 and is currently serving as the vice-president of hospital-at-home operations in Wisconsin. Karen’s extensive experience across the United Kingdom and international healthcare systems gives her a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities in delivering safe, effective, person-centred care. The selection panel therefore believes that Karen’s nursing background and her patient and safety-centred approach equip her well to undertake this new role. I am sure that the Parliament will want to wish her well in her appointment.

I move,

That the Parliament nominates Karen Titchener to His Majesty The King for appointment as the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland under schedule 1 paragraph 4 of the Patient Safety Commissioner for Scotland Act 2023.

I commend Graeme Thomson as an excellent appointment. I worked with him on the delivery of HMS Duncan in 2012, and he is a very competent programme director.

The issue is that, fundamentally, the yard is driven by milestone payments, and a big milestone payment was the delivery of the Glen Sannox. It was known as long ago as October that, in order to deliver the Glen Sannox, the yard had to cannibalise parts from the Glen Rosa and put man hours from the Glen Rosa into the Glen Sannox. Is it not the case that trade-offs have to be accepted, given the complex nature of the programme? That the Government, as the main shareholder, is not sighted on those issues is a problem. Perhaps there is an issue with the chairman continuing to sack directors and chief executive officers without proper management handovers or a proper understanding of the trade-offs and difficulties that the programme is enduring.

It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate. The main area that I wish to raise with colleagues across the Parliament is the future of the Wood Group, which is one of Scotland’s largest and most iconic companies. I am surprised that it has not been the subject of more discussion and debate in the country to date.

Headquartered in Aberdeen, the Wood Group is one of Scotland’s largest companies and the largest legacy of what we achieved as a nation from the 1970s North Sea oil boom. It has now grown to become one of the most diversified global engineering contractors. It is based across 60 countries, employs 35,000 people and has a global headquarters in Aberdeen that employs 4,500 people.

In 2017, the Wood Group acquired Amec Foster Wheeler, which was an American rival, for £2.2 billion. Although the Wood Group had been very successful in recent years, Amec Foster Wheeler’s heavy liabilities unfortunately left it with significant debts and liabilities. The acquisition was initially viewed as being good for the company due to Amec Foster Wheeler’s experience in oil and gas and in environmental and infrastructure projects, but because it had many contracts at fixed prices, profit margins were wiped out as inflation rose.

As a result, the Wood Group has suffered significantly. The reduced revenue and the liabilities from those old contracts have led to significant weaknesses in the company, which has seen its market value plummet, and £1.4 billion of debt facilities will expire next year, meaning that the company’s share price has crashed and it has fallen out of the FTSE 250. That has opened up an asset-stripping takeover opportunity for Sidara—a smaller engineering consultancy that is based in Dubai—which came in last year with a £1.5 billion offer for the company. It has now returned, marking the offer down by 85 per cent to just £242 million for the larger Wood Group.

That takeover would be strategically inept, and the Scottish and UK Governments should take action to support the Wood Group’s board to resist it due to the company’s strategic importance to Scotland and the UK. It is one of the UK’s primary engineering resources for renewables, carbon capture knowledge and North Sea decommissioning. Sidara has a global headquarters in Dubai and a British head office in London. If its takeover happens, there is a very high chance that the Aberdeen headquarters will close down because a second UK base will not be required, and that would mean that shared global functions such as finance, human resources and information technology would be transferred to Dubai.

We have seen all too many examples of the so-called branch plant economy in Scotland. If the Scottish Government is serious about a just transition, it needs to look at options to step in and save the Wood Group. There is a practical way to do that. The Wood Group currently owes around $1.1 billion to lenders and around £800 million in net cash and bank accounts. Its current crisis stems from the need to refinance that borrowing by quarter 4 of 2026. The Government stepping in and offering reassurance to the Wood Group’s core lenders would relieve the pressure on the company and allow it to be better placed to resist the takeover.

The Government would have plenty of options as a result, such as seeking an equity share in the company or even a non-executive director position, and it would allow the company to maintain its strategic headquarters and independence as a Scottish company. In time, the legacy contracts from the acquisition of Amec Foster Wheeler will expire, the company’s share price will recover, it will return to the FTSE 250 and the Government will redeem a significant premium on its investment. It will preserve a strategically important Scottish business in Aberdeen, with a headquarters with around 5,000 people and a global network that will allow Scottish leadership to be sustained in the sector.

It is a no-brainer. I encourage ministers to seriously investigate options and engage with the Scotland Office and UK Government colleagues to pursue the opportunity before it is too late.

I thank my friend for giving way. He is making a very powerful point on an excellent exhibition. Does he also recognise that, because of a lack of timely access to diagnostics and treatment, too many Scots die premature deaths that could have been prevented?

I, too, thank Roz McCall for securing this important members’ business debate, the motion for which I was pleased to sign and support.

Mental health awareness week is an important time in the calendar when we recognise the significant advances that we have made in raising awareness of mental health issues while also acknowledging that, as a nation, we still have a long way to go to achieve a society and an economy that promote good mental health.

The theme of this year’s mental health awareness week is community, and its aim is to recognise the role that community resilience plays in providing a positive environment for good mental health to take root. Yet, across Scotland, we see community mental health services being stretched to breaking point, with punishing cuts taking place from Aberdeenshire to Dumfries and Galloway, leading to vital services being reduced, if not closed completely.

In my home city of Glasgow, the cuts have been particularly brutal this year. In an age when increasing awareness of mental health enjoys cross-party consensus, it is all the more incredible that Glasgow’s health and social care partnership has cut its funding for Flourish House, a groundbreaking mental health recovery community that has been based in the Woodlands district since 1997. It is the last remaining example in Scotland of the international clubhouse model. It is not just Flourish house that faces an uncertain future. Glasgow’s Notre Dame Centre for children, the Sandyford clinic’s counselling service for survivors of sexual assault, and even the Scottish Huntington’s Association’s specialist services for Huntington’s disease sufferers are all in danger of being closed due to funding cuts. That means that while we in Parliament rightly celebrate the importance of community groups in providing good mental health, the same community groups in Glasgow and elsewhere in Scotland are now deeply worried about their future.

According to research carried out by See Me Scotland, 60 per cent of Scots surveyed think that

“a great deal or fair amount of shame”

is still associated with mental illness, I am sure that everyone in the Parliament would agree that that is simply unacceptable. In this mental health awareness week, we must recognise that if we want to lift that shame we must be willing to finance services that provide help for people who are brave enough to ask for help. It is not good enough to say, “It’s okay to not be okay.” It is the duty of everyone who is elected to Parliament to support critical services. We must work together to end the cruel cuts to mental health services across Scotland and instead create a process that will guarantee the long-term funding of such vital support. Government at all levels must be reprogrammed to prioritise long-term value creation over short-term cost savings.

I thank Ms McCall for lodging her motion, which addresses a topic that I am passionate about. I congratulate the Mental Health Foundation on its persistence in working to raise awareness of mental health issues in Scotland. I hope that the debate will play an important role in raising awareness of mental health and the importance of properly funding community-based mental health services, as well as dealing with the critical triggers and causes of mental ill health at all stages of life. We all need to play our part in dealing with the root causes of poor mental health and securing better support for people in Scotland who suffer from it. For that reason, I am very happy to support the motion, which places such focus on community resilience.