Chamber and committees

The safe consumption pilot in Glasgow is a critical part of our effort to tackle the drug deaths crisis in our country, but we need many complementary tools in the toolkit in order to address the crisis effectively. The Turning Point Scotland 218 centre in Glasgow, which supports women in the justice system with a number of critical issues such as problematic drug use, is set to close next month as a result of funding cuts. How can the First Minister say that other drug policy interventions are not being compromised when his Government is allowing a well-established and effective lifeline service in Glasgow to close?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app would not connect. I would have voted yes.

Although it is appropriate for local services to be decided locally, the minister cannot abrogate her responsibility for cutting the resources that are available to allow those decisions to be made in the best interests of local communities.

In 2022-23, the communities mental health and wellbeing fund was oversubscribed, with almost half of all applicants missing out. Does the Scottish Government accept that more support needs to be provided for community-based mental health services? What assessment has it made of the insufficient capacity of the communities mental health and wellbeing fund to meet the huge demand from local authorities and local health and social care partnerships? How is it helping to support the high number of unsuccessful applicants? If those services fail, that will surely have long-term consequences.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app would not connect. I would have voted yes.

The reason why Labour brought the motion to the Parliament today is that the waiting times scandal is unprecedented and comes up daily in our casework. We have all heard that in the speeches today and we all have skin in the game, because even if our own families are not affected, we will know someone who is languishing on an NHS waiting list. Colin Smyth raised the tragic case of his constituent, but that is only one horrendous example; I could rehearse several, if I had more time.

As we know, prevention and getting in early is better—otherwise families spiral out of control and much greater harm is caused. That is what is compounding the problem that we face. One in six Scots—more than 860,000 of us, or what would be the biggest city in Scotland’s worth of people—are languishing on an NHS waiting list, as my friend the member for Dumbarton, who is newly invested as Dame Jackie Baillie, mentioned earlier.

The warm words from the Scottish Government cut little ice on this side of the chamber. In 2022, the First Minister said that the Government would seek to eliminate the longest waits in planned care, but around 80,000 people are still waiting more than a year to be seen. That has consequences. As Annie Wells, a member for Glasgow, said, it is estimated that there are 1,600 excess deaths in A and E alone. The problem is severe and it is having a serious effect on our population. That is why this is a matter for debate.

With 7,000 Scots waiting more than two years for treatment—as opposed to only 227 people in England—it is disingenuous in the extreme for members to claim that Covid is the common denominator behind these matters. Covid has certainly had an effect, but it does not account for the extent to which the NHS in Scotland is not performing well enough. It is completely unacceptable for the Government not to take responsibility for that; it should stand by that record.

Will the cabinet secretary give way?

We seem to be in violent agreement: I accept that Covid has had an effect, but it does not account for the extent to which the NHS is in disarray in Scotland. As for privatisation, Clare Haughey has grossly misrepresented the Labour Party’s position.

We should consider the reality of what our constituents are telling us. After all, we are here today not to moan about other parts of the UK but to represent our constituents in this Parliament and to hold this Government to account for its actions.

I am afraid that it is simply not acceptable for people on more than one waiting list to have to prioritise one over another, for people to wait multiple years for surgery or for young people to wait more than a year for a mental health assessment, as happens in countless cases.

Some members of the SNP made constructive points. I refer to the member for Glasgow Provan, who raised the issue of digital spines for patient journeys. There are huge interventions that we could make to improve productivity in our NHS, but capital budgets are being cut in efforts to improve efficiency. Constrained GPs tell us that they simply do not have the headspace to even look at service reforms.

Members have raised serious concerns about mental health. The Scottish Government has failed to ever meet its target on waiting times for CAMHS, and the psychological therapies target has never been routinely met. Dr Gulhane, a member for Glasgow, mentioned that, as did Mr Greene, a member for West Scotland. Those are critical points that have to be continually made to the Government. The Government says that it takes the issue of those waits seriously, but the mental health budget has been frozen and subsequently cut in-year for two years running.

The Government is failing to meet its target of 10 per cent of NHS spend being allocated to mental health. Only this week, the cabinet secretary admitted to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee that it is unlikely that the target will be met by the end of this session of Parliament. That is simply not acceptable, because if the 10 per cent commitment had been fulfilled over the past three years, almost £550 million more would have been invested in mental health services. Instead, we have a recruitment crisis that is costing us £567 million on bank and agency staffing. The Government has the cheek to talk about privatisation when it is ploughing £0.5 billion into private recruitment agencies. It is a sham and unacceptable.

As colleagues have referenced, the waiting times for cancer diagnostic tests are costing lives. I am afraid that people who are waiting for a cancer diagnosis are not waiting well but are dying while they wait for treatment. That is what is happening in our midst, and it is unacceptable for it to happen on the Government’s watch.

That is why we have brought the motion to the chamber today, and it is why we commend it to members. I hope that all parties will support it for the sake of Scotland’s health and to ensure that we provide the best possible outcomes for our constituents.

Will the member take an intervention?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I seek your guidance on a point of serious concern relating to the Scottish budget. It was reported at the weekend that an inaccuracy in the budget presented to the Parliament on 19 December 2023 has resulted in £5 million of capital funding being withdrawn from the Clyde Gateway urban regeneration company in Glasgow. That was not just a typo; it was a serious oversight with consequences. That withdrawal of £5 million of capital funding has caused problems for Clyde Gateway, which had planned its capital projects around that sum. Not only does the blunder deal a harsh blow to the local economy in Glasgow and South Lanarkshire; it also represents a misleading of Parliament. The figure in the budget documents does not match the reality. How can people have trust in the other numbers in the budget in the light of a mistake of this magnitude?

I would be grateful, Presiding Officer, if you could therefore advise how the Scottish Government could be compelled to correct the inaccuracy in the budget documents, and I would ask that you consider inviting the Deputy First Minister to the chamber to address the discrepancy and any others that may feature in the budget.

I support and welcome the principles of the bill. However, we must set the legislation in the context in which it has been introduced, which is the decimation of local government in Scotland—no more so than in my home city of Glasgow. Glasgow City Council has seen the largest reduction in real-terms revenue funding from the Scottish Government of any local authority over the past decade, at £270 per person compared with an average of £160 per person across Scotland. That Scottish Government share of the cake that goes to Glasgow City Council is worth 80 per cent of the council’s entire income—by far the largest single funding contributor—and is increasingly ring fenced for Scottish Government priority areas, thus reducing the council’s financial autonomy. Therefore, any measure by which the council can increase its autonomy and improve its revenue position is to be welcomed.

The local taxation balance between the council tax and business rates in Glasgow has shifted towards the former and away from the latter in recent years. That is a regressive change. The cost of council tax has been increased and it is anticipated that it will bring in more revenue than business rates in 2021-22, the revenue from which had been falling even before the pandemic hit.

We have a tax situation in local government that is obsolete. Council tax is 30 years out of date and is regressive in the way that it falls: it is too burdensome on the poorest residents in our city, while not charging the wealthiest enough. Revenue from business rates has been falling in Glasgow for the past five years, despite the value of commercial property rising and there being an estimated 18,000 businesses in the city. The tax is clearly ineffective in capturing a portion of the growth in the economic value of businesses operating in Glasgow, while simultaneously stymieing the use of business premises by fledgling start-up entrepreneurial enterprises. As was mentioned by Miles Briggs, the Conservative member for the Lothians, the VAT threshold also artificially constrains business growth.

We have to set all that in the context of a situation of distress. Glasgow City Council has had to make an estimated £327 million in service cuts over the past decade, which is equivalent to half of the council’s education budget. Spending on education and social work now takes up 71 per cent of all council expenditure, which is an increase from 64 per cent in 2016-17. Therefore, the council service provision has been increasingly narrowed to two big priority areas.