Chamber and committees

According to Leukaemia Care, patients with leukaemia have a significantly higher rate of emergency diagnosis than those with other forms of cancer, which means that people only find out that they have leukaemia when they present with an emergency. The problem is also being exacerbated by the pandemic.

What can the Government do to increase awareness, given that people are delaying seeing general practitioners, and that there are backlogs in the health service?

—that the resources are in place.

What is the Lord Advocate’s understanding of the financial implications of her statement, particularly in relation to putting in place appropriate support for the most vulnerable individuals?

I welcome what the Lord Advocate has said about criminal justice responses. In the past, the problem that the courts have often experienced when it comes to considering alternatives to custody is a lack of resource, so I am pleased that she is now satisfied—

To ask the Scottish Government what actions it is taking to measure the progress of its Covid-19 recovery policies. (S6O-00168)

At the recent Scottish elections, all political parties spoke about a jobs-led recovery. What action is the Scottish Government taking across all departments to support the creation of jobs? In which sectors will those jobs be created? What can the Scottish Government do to ensure that support is in place for people who may lose their jobs in the coming months as furlough comes to an end?

A Scottish Trades Union Congress report has estimated that 350,000 jobs could result from green policies. Actually, we do not have a choice. I suspect that, in the coming weeks, there will be a great deal of debate about the climate emergency. The challenge that the Parliament faces is how we deliver a net zero economy and how we create jobs so that the issue that the member is raising is addressed.

There are a number of ways in which we can do that, but we need to be more ambitious. We need to look at how we retrofit homes in the way that the Government is speaking about. That should be delivered by councils on a universal basis, which would address not just the challenge of the climate emergency but the rising cost of fuel and the cost of living crisis that many people have to live with. As Monica Lennon said, a publicly owned energy company should be central to our energy strategy.

Job creation and decentralisation go hand in hand. Liam Kerr referred to one particular bit of evidence, but there is a great deal of evidence that green policies create a huge number of jobs.

As we approach COP26, Scotland needs to lead the way. The Parliament needs to put out a very clear message—on a cross-party basis, I hope—that we must be more ambitious and decisive and that we need faster action. I call on the Scottish Government to heed those calls. I believe that, in the coming weeks, there will be many people on the streets making that challenge. We need to live up to that and do what is required for the sake of humanity.

I welcome this timely debate on how we move towards a net zero society and support for a just transition. The cabinet secretary said that it is a matter of consensus; indeed, many parts of society are already working on how they decarbonise.

The concept of a just transition came from the trade union movement, although we all have to accept that there has probably never been a just transition. When there have been economic changes in the past, there has been no just transition, and working people and their communities have suffered. Therefore, the challenge of delivering a just transition is not easy.

Employment in Scotland’s low-carbon and renewable energy sector fell from 23,000 in 2012 to 21,400 in 2019, and that was before Covid. The Scottish Government has promised to deliver 130,000 green jobs by the end of this year but, so far, it has delivered only 21,000. A Friends of the Earth report that was published last week showed that North Sea production has increased by 15 per cent since the climate emergency was declared. I say those things not to make political points but to highlight the scale of the challenge.

The Labour manifesto for the 2019 general election committed to guaranteeing a job with equivalent terms and conditions to those of workers in the oil and gas sector who lost their jobs as a result of the move away from the sector. I have called for the use of furlough for oil and gas workers until equivalent alternative employment can be created. We need to show that level of ambition to ensure that there is decisive action to address the climate challenge.

I add my voice to the tributes to all NHS and social care workers. In the short time that is available to me, I will focus on the national care service.

It is right that we recognise that social care, like the health service, is an essential component of the welfare state, and there is much that is positive about the Scottish Government’s proposals. However, my concern is that the proposals are for a national care commissioning service, not a national care service, which will lead to a huge rise in the amount of tendering and further centralisation, with an erosion of the powers of councils.

The idea of a national care service was modelled on the NHS. The NHS employs doctors, nurses, lab technicians, porters, cleaners and many others. It provides a service, and a considerable amount of effort has gone into preventing it from being privatised. The proposed national care service will not employ care staff but will commission services from the private and third sectors—and, I presume, from the public sector, too. It is not clear that the bodies in the public sector, such as councils, will even have preferred bidder status.

Last year, the First Minister said that she supported calls to remove the profit motive from the care home sector. However, the consultation does not mention the word “profit” once. In the consultation, there is no acknowledgement that the private sector’s explicit obligation is primarily to shareholders, not the needs of residents. Yet, in the proposals, outsourcing is encouraged and nothing is done to challenge the current private sector-dominated model.

I therefore have a number of questions to put to the minister. Are there any companies that currently deliver care that will not be allowed to bid under the new care system? A 2019 investigation by The Ferret found that at least 44 Scottish care homes were owned by companies based in tax havens such as Jersey, the Isle of Man and Gibraltar. Will the Government follow the example of countries such as Denmark and ban offshore ownership?

The Government proposes extending the scope of the national care service to children’s services, community justice, alcohol and drug services, social work and an element of mental health services. Will those services be open to tendering processes, too?

Will the Government legislate to ensure that no contracts will be awarded to companies that fail to recognise trade unions or that do not apply union-negotiated rates of pay, in line with the demands of the Scottish Trades Union Congress?

The principle of setting up a national care service that operates like the NHS is right, and, as I said, there is much that I hope will be positive in the Government’s proposals. However, as they stand, the proposals would not deliver a national care service in the public sector that would be free at the point of use. I believe that that is the kind of social care service that we should be continuing to campaign for.

It would be useful if the cabinet secretary could keep Parliament updated on the number of refugees who come to Scotland. Could he give more detail on the money that was announced last week and how it will be spent? As he knows, previous work on refugees has been funded by the Home Office. Will he outline what he is doing to look at the pressures on councils, and outline what can be done by the Scottish Government to provide help with wider support services?

7.

To ask the Scottish Government what work it has done to assess how many Afghan refugees can be housed across all local authority areas. (S6O-00121)