Chamber and committees

The minister’s answer would be funny if this were not such a serious issue. Pat Rafferty, the Scottish secretary of Unite, has described the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill as “not fit for purpose”. Unite’s intervention joins a growing chorus of voices raising significant concerns about the lack of clarity on what the bill will achieve in practice. All of that begs the question of why the bill was not co-designed from the beginning, before we had the proposed legislation in front of us.

Unite’s withdrawal is a significant development. The union represents thousands of social care workers who are on the front line of delivery. On countless occasions, the minister has talked about the importance of a co-design process in shaping the national care service. Can he explain why so many stakeholders, particularly those representing front-line care workers, have lost confidence in his national care service proposal?

The minister talks about listening to people, but he has his fingers in his ears. How many key stakeholders will have to withdraw from the co-design process before he starts treating the issue with the seriousness that it demands? The concerns that Unite has raised reinforce wide-ranging concerns that have already been aired by professional bodies, trade unions and front-line workers. Many trade unions have described the bill as not fit for purpose, and many have said that the minister needs to get back round the table, do the co-design process properly and think again. Indeed, the Parliament’s own Finance and Public Administration Committee—

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the reported announcement that Unite the union has withdrawn from the co-design process of the national care service. (S6T-01149)

—which is chaired by a Scottish National Party colleague, voiced its concern on the cost of the bill. The minister needs to wake up and smell the coffee—

To ask the Scottish Government when it last met with East Renfrewshire Council. (S6O-01826)

The minister spoke about partnership working, but he will recognise COSLA’s disappointment that the Government has again refused to engage on local government finance. Indeed, the much-acclaimed £550 million in additional funding for local authorities is political spin: the figure has been condemned by COSLA and new analysis has revealed that the reality is closer to just £38 million. East Renfrewshire Council has been dealt a flat cash settlement, despite soaring inflation at more than 9 per cent, and faces a £30 million shortfall.

Given the proportion of income that comes from the Government’s general revenue funding, local authorities are being forced by the Scottish National Party Government to make unthinkable cuts to local government services and/or to raise council tax. What choice would the minister advise East Renfrewshire to make: reduce school opening hours or make large increases to council tax? When will the Government get back round the table with councils such as East Renfrewshire and give communities a fair deal?

I begin by thanking Fergus Ewing for bringing this important debate to the chamber as we mark Holocaust memorial day, which will be observed around the world tomorrow, 78 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

We remember the 6 million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis, alongside millions of others who were killed by Nazi persecution—Roma and Sinti people, disabled people, LGBT people, black people and political opponents of the regime—and we rededicate ourselves to saying, “Never again”. Yet, all too painfully, we know that, in the years since the Holocaust, genocide has happened again—in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur—and that, in our world today, identity-based persecution continues against Yazidi people, Rohingya Muslims and Uyghur Muslims.

As we have heard, the theme of this year’s memorial day, which is provided by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, is “Ordinary People”. Genocide is facilitated by ordinary people: people who turn a blind eye, believe propaganda or join murderous regimes. Genocide is perpetrated against ordinary people: people who were neighbours, colleagues and friends. Identity-based persecution can also be challenged by ordinary people: those who stand up and speak out, or those with great courage who hide and save people in the darkest of times. Thus the ordinary can become extraordinary.

Colleagues will know that I come from East Renfrewshire and have represented communities there for more than a decade. As it is home to Scotland’s largest Jewish population, I have had the honour over many years of meeting Holocaust survivors and hearing their testimony at first hand. What always strikes me is the normality of people’s lives before they were shattered by the Nazis coming to power or invading their homeland. They lived lives that we would recognise, had dreams and ambitions that we would recognise, and loved and were loved in a way that we would all recognise, yet all that basic humanity was torn apart as the Nazis dehumanised and othered them.

Today, I want to take a moment to speak about Henry and Ingrid Wuga. Henry and his late wife, Ingrid, survived the Holocaust by escaping Germany as teenagers. They had watched their ordinary lives being smashed on Kristallnacht and were abused at school and in the streets. They saw at first hand the increasing violence and brutality of the Nazis under the Nuremberg laws.

Their parents made the courageous decision to send them to Britain on the Kindertransport—ordinary parents going to extraordinary lengths to save their children. They were sponsored by people in the UK and, eventually, here in Scotland, where they would come to settle, meet each other, marry and raise a family. They were sponsored by ordinary people in this country who decided to open their homes and their hearts to people in the most desperate of circumstances—something that we can all recognise from current events.

Henry and Ingrid dedicated years of their lives in this country to educating young people about the Holocaust through the Holocaust Educational Trust. In their gentle and encouraging way, they helped young people to see the Holocaust as relevant to them, their lives and their everyday experience. We owe a debt of gratitude to them and to other survivors for sharing their testimony.

As time passes, and the living survivor memory declines, it falls to each of us to tell their stories. We, ordinary people, must tell the story, call out hatred and light the darkness. We do not do that alone; we stand together with amazing organisations such as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Anne Frank Trust, the Gathering the Voices project and many more custodians of Holocaust remembrance.

Kemal Pervanic, a survivor of the Bosnian genocide, whom I have heard speak, said:

“People may think that they have nothing to do with my story. But what happened to me, could happen to them—to people like yourself. It may sound too hard to believe but this doesn’t happen to strangers who live far away. I’m just an ordinary person. These terrible things can happen to people like us.”

Let us all remember the ordinary people who were cruelly murdered in the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, and let us all look inside ourselves to find the ability to make the ordinary extraordinary.

On Monday, Public Health Scotland published its rapid action drug alerts and response quarterly ?report, which, tragically, confirmed an increase in the number of suspected drug deaths in October and November 2022, with a 20 per cent increase in November compared with the same month in the previous year. Every one of those deaths was preventable, and every one of them was a tragedy. What action is the minister taking, in response to those figures, to ensure that we make significantly faster progress, particularly on the implementation of medication-assisted treatment—MAT—standards?

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. There was an error. I would have voted no.

Thank you.