Chamber and committees

In the summer recess, I visited Moving On Inverclyde, which is a community-based service supporting people who are in recovery from addiction and supporting families who have lost a loved one to alcohol or drugs. Crucially, such services contribute to the reduction of strain on our national health service.

Inverclyde is one five local authorities in which alcohol-specific death rates have remained above the Scottish average consistently for the past five years. In response to those figures, Dr Alastair MacGilchrist, the chair of Scottish Health Action on Alcohol Problems, has called on the Scottish Government to increase funding and resources for alcohol services.

What additional support will be made available to ensure that people have access to life-changing and life-saving support, which is so often delivered by the third sector, particularly given the challenges that many charities are facing just to keep the lights on and the doors open because of the cost of energy and resources?

Following Jackie Dunbar’s revelation about her previous life in a petrol station, I look forward to future stories of who she met on the forecourts.

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this important debate and am grateful to Stuart McMillan for securing cross-party support to bring to the chamber such an important issue. It has been increasing in public awareness and concern for some time, and has been raised by constituents, businesses and community organisations across Inverclyde, as we have heard.

Inverclyde Council has been vocal about and critical of the great disparity in petrol prices between Inverclyde and other areas of Scotland, since the issue first arose. I have had a conversation with my colleague Councillor Martin McCluskey, who represents Gourock and has been working to shine a light on this important issue, which affects not just his constituents in Gourock, at the western end of the area, but all people across Inverclyde. His efforts have included writing, as many of us have done, to the Competition and Markets Authority about that proposed road fuel market study.

However, he and others have suggested that there has to be a more robust analysis of the issue at local level. In correspondence with the CMA, he has urged it to expand its investigation beyond the rural-urban divide of petrol prices, by pointing out that Inverclyde does not fall neatly into the category of being exclusively rural or exclusively urban, and to consider Inverclyde on its own merits as a potential case study, because the area has been at the sharp end of higher fuel prices for years and, as I have said, does not neatly fit within some of the criteria. I echo those calls again and ask the Government to urge the CMA to act in that way.

The current situation is unfair and unsustainable. There is no valid justification as to why people in Inverclyde have to pay significantly more to fuel their cars than people across the rest of Scotland, including their near neighbours in places such as Renfrewshire.

As we have heard and understand, international pressures affect fuel prices, but that does not explain why prices have risen more quickly and have remained higher at forecourts across Inverclyde. I, too, have had the sort of response from the supermarkets that Jamie Greene has mentioned, about local price comparison and competitiveness, and, to be honest, it does not cut the mustard in explaining exactly what is going on.

It makes no sense that someone from Greenock or Port Glasgow has to drive 10 or 15 miles into Renfrewshire so that they can fuel up their cars for significantly less in Bishopton, Erskine or Paisley. Just the other day, I had a conversation with my office manager, who lives in Port Glasgow and works in Paisley. She tries to ensure that she fills up the car only when she comes to work, having left the Inverclyde boundary.

In the summer, the average price of petrol was £1.85 per litre in Inverclyde, compared with £1.77 per litre in Renfrewshire and £1.74 per litre in East Renfrewshire. That is almost the equivalent of a £5 tax every time someone fills their car with petrol in Inverclyde. Although it is encouraging that recent data has shown that a litre of petrol now costs, on average, £1.65, which is 24p less than the peak price in August, it is clear that prices in Inverclyde are still far too high, and higher than anywhere else in Scotland, with fuel costing 6p more per litre.

We must ask ourselves how it can be justified that people who fuel up in Inverclyde are faced with the biggest bills in the country while—as we have heard—companies such as BP report eye-watering, and frankly immoral, profits, with BP reporting a profit of £7 billion for the quarter between April and June. I also agree with what Stuart McMillan has said about the profits of supermarkets and their duty to act in this space.

Faced with growing energy bills, rising food prices and stagnant wages, people in Inverclyde should not also be faced with an extra fuel tax for filling up their car at the forecourt that is closest to their home. In the midst of the cost of living crisis, multinational companies should be doing whatever they can to support people, not ripping them off based on where they live. The postcode lottery for fuel costs is simply ridiculous.

It is important to state that the debate, and the entire argument, is not about party politics—it must be about the people of Inverclyde. It is incumbent on us all, therefore, as Inverclyde’s elected representatives, to work together to get to the bottom of why these fuel prices are so high, bring about action that will lead to a reduction in fuel prices and deliver a fair deal for Inverclyde.

Thank you for that response. I appreciate absolutely what you said about co-design; I witnessed some of that in a previous role before I became an MSP. As the framework bill stands, does it meet your expectations and the expectations of those with lived experience? My contention is that people want detail, and they want to help to co-design that detail through the legislative process rather than after the fact. It feels like a structural bill rather than a bill about culture.

I will pick up on that point about the framework bill and the way that this has come about. Some witnesses have said that the concern about its being a framework bill is that co-design could have happened prior to publication of the bill. The bill could have been co-designed and if it had been, we would now be having a different discussion. The views of those who are calling for a pause, including Social Work Scotland, Unison the union and COSLA, have been fairly well documented.

I am keen to get your views on whether there should have been a co-design process prior to the bill’s introduction. I do not think that anyone disagrees with what you have said about the fact that people want to see tangible benefits. Do we need more pace on other parts of your review recommendations—for example, removal of charges for non-residential social care support? Should we invest money now in order to move the dial on those things, rather than waiting for the delivery of a national care service by, potentially, the end of this session of Parliament?

Thank you both for those responses. There is an issue about the structures around care boards, the culture that is embedded through HSCPs, and some of that integration work.

I have a question for Alison White on the point about potential staff transfer. Last week, we heard from COSLA, which, obviously, was very concerned about the local government space and what might happen to local government staff. As you represent social workers, can you give me a sense of what the anxieties are for the social work profession about what their future might look like?

I am keen to understand more about the approach to community health services and where they should sit within the structure. I appreciate that it is difficult at this stage to fully understand and discuss this, but should responsibility for community health services sit with health boards or the proposed new care boards?

Thank you. I will move on to Alison White. I appreciate that you are here to represent Social Work Scotland, so I will not ask you necessarily to respond as a chief officer.

I want to ask about Social Work Scotland’s view at the moment. It has called for a pause in the legislative process. Is that to do with what you said about co-design? You said that there should have been a process of co-design prior to this point, rather than it happening through secondary legislation. Is there anything that you want to add about how Social Work Scotland arrived at that position?

Thank you, convener. I have two questions, but they will be directed to individual witnesses.

I will begin with Patricia Cassidy’s comments. I am looking for a bit more clarity about where chief officers are on a number of issues. In many of the submissions that we received from local authorities, IJBs and health and social care partnerships, concern was expressed about what disruption to services will do to integration. Angus HSCP said that

“Significant work has gone into the establishment of IJBs”,

and that a national care service

“could take the focus away from integration and continual improvement”.

East Lothian HSCP said that

“It would be damaging and counterproductive to restructure services again, less than eight years since the integration of H&SC.”

Are chief officers of the view that there needs to be structural change to the care boards, or is there a sense that there is not enough detail in the bill to make a judgment about whether we should move towards that and about what the change would look like?

I will pick up on your response to Evelyn Tweed on accountability to the Parliament and the minister being held accountable for social care. Is it your view that social care is not currently being held to account by elected council members and health board appointees—who are appointed by the Scottish ministers—who sit on IJBs? The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities would take exception to that because of how councillors are connected to their communities and hold social care accountable. Is the principle of local accountability not at stake, to some degree, if we focus everything on the Parliament?

It is another record-breaking day for the cabinet secretary. We know that the situation in A and E is emblematic of the wider crisis that is engulfing our NHS. Delays to discharge are at their highest-ever levels, social care is in crisis and the Royal College of Nursing is balloting nurses on strike action for the first time in its 106-year history.

I have a constituent who has been waiting for nine months for a colposcopy after her smear test reported high-risk human papillomavirus and abnormal cells in her cervix. That is four months longer than is set out in national guidelines.

Excessive waits are the difference between good outcomes and bad outcomes. Once again, I ask: when will the cabinet secretary set out a clear and meaningful plan, ahead of winter, to deal with the shocking waiting times? If he cannot, or if he will not, will he resign?