Chamber and committees

I will continue in that vein. We have seen evidence in the Audit Scotland report that data and planning have not been adequate. That answer suggests that we have to do a lot more to understand and profile where we are.

I return to the cabinet secretary with a question about nursing places and vacancies. There are 6,674.4 whole-time equivalent nursing and midwifery vacancies in the NHS, and we have heard some of the cabinet secretary’s reasons for the challenges in that. Will he also accept that the reduction in the number of nursing training places—a decision that was taken by his predecessor—has exacerbated those challenges?

I am trying to ask you a question and get the answer.

The Audit Scotland report states that

“The NHS was not financially sustainable before the Covid-19 pandemic”

and that six boards require additional financial support from the Government or to use non-recurring savings in order to break even. Is the cabinet secretary confident that those boards will be able to achieve financial balance in 2022-23, or is it likely that on-going support will be required? What is his assessment of the issues that are being experienced by the boards? Is it a case of weak financial management, or is a lack of adequate resourcing a more fundamental issue?

The £10 million fund was announced in September of last year, but there was no spending until the beginning of this financial year. Why was that and what is the long-term strategy for funding this crucial work?

I heard the cabinet secretary’s initial answer to David Torrance’s question on workforce pressures, and his answer about Brexit. When the Auditor General for Scotland gave evidence to the committee, he spoke about historic problems with staffing. He said:

“We know, and have previously reported, that the NHS has, historically, struggled to achieve all its staffing ambitions.”—[Official Report, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, 19 April 2022; c 3.]

Will the cabinet secretary acknowledge that there has been something of a historic failure to deliver a workforce plan, and that there were failures in meeting staffing targets before the pandemic?

This debate is extremely important as we mark national walking month. We should take the time to thank all the organisations that have engaged with and briefed us ahead of today’s debate, in particular Paths for All, sportscotland and the Scottish Rights of Way and Access Society. Their engagement in the debate and more widely on the issue of walking across Scotland is hugely important and they make a vast contribution.

We also start with a degree of consensus on the vital importance of getting out and walking or wheeling, and on the improvements that that simple activity can make to our physical and mental health and wellbeing. I am sure that, like me, members across the chamber rediscovered what it is to take time to walk or wheel during the lockdown periods of the past two years. Many people found huge benefit from going out for that daily walk or wheel, whether in our beautiful countryside, beside our lochs and mountains, in our urban parks or along canals. In many ways, people rediscovered the joy of what was around them and saw huge benefits for their health and wellbeing.

We know from evidence that a 20-minute walk can reduce the risk of a number of preventable health conditions, including certain cancers, depression, heart disease and type II diabetes. Supporting people to be physically active is vital to our public health mission in Scotland and active travel is vital to reducing health inequalities, meeting our climate targets and relieving pressure on the national health service. It is not just walking, of course; associated activities such as running and cycling also have an impact and must be supported.

The national walking strategy is hugely important for encouraging people to walk. As the strategy was originally launched in 2014, I hope that the minister will say more about its refresh and update, particularly as we recover from Covid-19 and hope that people sustain that level of activity. There are many strong recommendations in the strategy and it points to the work that we still have to do. Figures from local authorities in 2019 show that the proportion of trips made on foot ranged from 39 per cent in Dundee to just 11 per cent in East Renfrewshire. As I hail from East Renfrewshire, it is clear to me that we need to do more locally and nationally to get those numbers up.

Another key recommendation in the strategy is that there must be

“Better quality walking environments with attractive, well designed and managed built and natural spaces for everyone”.

That brings me to the Labour amendment. Although, as I have said, many people in our communities rediscovered walking in the lockdowns, they also discovered that paths are often inaccessible or covered in litter, that too many pavements are cracked and broken, and that too many parks are dark, unlit and unsafe to go to, particularly for women on their own. Councils are struggling to keep up with repairs and it is becoming harder and harder to sustain

“attractive, well designed and managed”

areas for walking, wheeling and cycling.

The truth is that, since 2013, the Scottish Government has cut £6 billion from local authority budgets and, right now, there is an eye-watering outstanding roads repair bill of at least £1.7 billion. That bill has been accumulated under the Government, and it makes already dangerous conditions worse—and that is even before we come to pavements. People will not walk if the infrastructure is not there to support them. Understandably, cash-strapped councils have had to prioritise other issues.

That has had an adverse impact on our most deprived communities and has limited the options for people to get out and take the most cost-effective form of exercise. We on the Labour benches have called for active travel spending to be increased to 10 per cent of the overall transport budget, to give priority to encouraging and enabling people to get out of cars and on to bikes, and to walk more, which will benefit their health and the health of our communities. We have also called for additional measures to improve women’s safety, including a pilot of physical space safety audits and providing planners with guidance on how to make communities safer.

That brings me to cycling, which we believe is a key component of the wider active travel agenda and is highlighted in our amendment. In last year’s election, the Scottish National Party promised free bikes to all school-age children who cannot afford them. In August 2020, the Greens called for all children from low-income families to receive a grant towards bikes and helmets to get to school safely. However, 18 months on, only 238 bikes have been given out, and the Government does not even have the statistics on how many children are using those pilot schemes.

I am in my last seconds.

That is a case of something perhaps looking good in a leaflet but not being delivered in reality.

Walking, wheeling and active travel are paramount for our health as a nation and our sense of wellbeing. However, we must do more to encourage more people to get out and about and to get active, particularly in our most deprived communities, and further cuts to local government services and infrastructure will hinder, rather than help with that.

I move amendment S6M-04256.1, to insert at end:

“; recognises that wider cuts to local authority services hamper active travel and the implementation of a gendered approach to safety; considers that improvements to roads and pavements are necessary to improve levels of walking and wheeling, particularly in more deprived areas, and calls again on the Scottish Government to provide access to a bike for every child who cannot afford one by the end of 2022.”

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the recent report by the charity, Magic Breakfast, showing that four in 10 Scottish schools have no breakfast provision at all and that breakfast provision in Scotland reaches the fewest disadvantaged pupils per school of any United Kingdom nation. (S6O-01046)

Last week, we had a debate in this chamber about the cost of the school day, and yet again the Government pledged its support for free breakfasts. In its manifesto for the Scottish Parliament elections last year, the Scottish National Party pledged to provide free breakfasts all year round, for all children in state-funded schools. That has been reiterated in the SNP’s local government manifesto in the past few weeks.

There have been lots of promises, but the Government has rolled back on its pledge to extend free school meals to all primary pupils in time for the start of the 2022-23 school year and is yet to set a new delivery date. There is no clarity on free breakfasts, which are vital. Indeed, they are even more vital during the cost of living crisis—

Magic Breakfast estimates that the cost of providing free breakfasts would be £20 million and points to underspends in pupil equity funding as a way to achieve that. When will the Government keep its promise and deliver free breakfasts in Scotland? Free breakfasts have been provided in Wales for years.