Chamber and committees

In the forthcoming bill, will the cabinet secretary commit to removing provisions that are dangerous for human rights and implementing those that are more positive for mental health?

The news today that East Dunbartonshire, Renfrewshire, East Renfrewshire and North Ayrshire will remain in level 2 is disappointing, particularly for local people and businesses. I have been contacted by people in my region aged between 30 and 39 who are anxious that they have not yet been called for vaccination, despite the encouragement for people in the 18-to-29 age group to register. We heard last week from the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care that the online portal that is used for 18 to 29-year-olds was being urgently considered for extension to the 30-plus age bracket. It would be useful to understand from the First Minister whether she will urgently consider extending online registration and, indeed, whether there could be a more standard online booking process and walk-in provision for areas of concern that remain in level 2 at the moment.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome you to your role.

It is an honour to be able to make my first speech in the chamber and to close for Scottish Labour in this important debate on our health service’s recovery. As other members have done, I begin by welcoming to their roles the cabinet secretary and the ministerial team of Maree Todd and Kevin Stewart, and all the new shadow spokespeople across the chamber.

This is a time like no other, so collectively we must rise to the challenges that lie before us. There will, of course, be times when we disagree, but there is also much common cause as we support our NHS to recover and build the social care services that we need for the future.

I commend colleagues across the chamber who have made first speeches today. We have begun to see the breadth and depth of what the 2021 intake will bring to our debates in Parliament. I hope that my speech will continue in that vein.

I hope that members will indulge me for a moment while I, as is the custom, thank my family—especially my parents and brother—my friends, party activists and everyone who has believed in me and supported me to be elected to Parliament. I must make particular mention of my partner Alan, who will—Covid permitting and one year late, in August—become my husband. Colleagues can expect some questions from me on the regulations that cover weddings; I hope that they will forgive me for that particular declaration of interests.

It is an honour to represent West Scotland and the communities where I grew up—where I still live today—and the communities that have shaped me, from Neilston and Barrhead to Kirkintilloch and Port Glasgow. I want to take a moment to pay tribute to the retiring members for West Scotland who have served with distinction over many years. I pay tribute to Mary Fee, particularly for her sterling work on equalities and human rights. Mary’s work for the rights of Gypsy Travellers in Scotland is something that I believe we should all take inspiration from, as we move forward with a recovery that works for everyone.

I also pay tribute to Ken Macintosh. So much has been said about Ken already. He is a great friend of mine and is someone who has always encouraged me, ever since I first delivered leaflets for him—as Jackson Carlaw will attest to—in my early teens. It was a great joy to be sworn in by Ken four weeks ago. He served our Parliament, our communities in Eastwood and West Scotland and, indeed, our country with diligence, integrity and kindness—something that can be all too lacking from our politics, at times.

On my election to Parliament, I remarked that there were times when I was growing up when I was worried that I would not be accepted for who I was, that life would always be hard and that discrimination and hurtful words would just be things that I had to accept. However, two great things gave me cause for hope as a teenager. First, there were the exceptional teachers in my high school, St Luke’s in Barrhead, who saw me for who I was and who genuinely cared and always taught me to be myself—my best self. In many ways they, like countless other educators, understood the real importance of supporting the mental health and wellbeing of young people, long before we started to discuss meaningfully the far-reaching impact of poor mental health for children and young people across Scotland.

The second cause for hope was this place: our Scottish Parliament. When I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager and realising that I was gay, the battles around repeal of section 28 raged across our society. On our television sets and through our letterboxes came the message that there was something inherently wrong and dangerous about lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, and that “pretend family relationships” had no place in our schools. I heard the anger, the hate and the downright mistruths that were told about people like me, and I was terrified.

Then people stood up in our new Scottish Parliament and said aloud, in the fledgling days of devolution, that the new Scotland would be a place of which inclusion, respect and equality were the hallmarks. They included Wendy Alexander, Donald Dewar and, of course, my colleague, now, on the Labour benches, Jackie Baillie. These are the powers of the Parliament: the power to choose, the power to make things right and the power to say to teenagers like me, “You have a place, you belong, you will be safe and we will stand up for you and all your hopes, dreams and ambitions.” As Donald Dewar put it,

“more than our politics and our laws”

it is about

“who we are, how we carry ourselves.”

This debate and the long discourse that we will have about recovery from the pandemic must be about who we are and how we carry ourselves.

More than 10,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives in the pandemic. Although we have often heard that figure in the chamber, each represents a person who loved and was loved. Our condolences go to anyone who has lost someone.

We must ask ourselves how we will help to carry those who are left behind: those who were already struggling with physical health conditions or poor mental health before the pandemic; the 10,618 people who have been waiting more than 18 weeks for mental health services; the one in five young people who are still being rejected from child and adolescent mental health services; the 28,000 people who have been waiting more than a year for treatment or surgery; and the people whose cancer diagnosis is missing, with more than 100,000 people waiting anxiously for a diagnostic test.

Social care workers are overworked and feeling undervalued. They are the Covid heroes whom we all applauded each Thursday night, but who were offered only a 20p an hour uplift in pay by the Scottish Government. They deserve an immediate pay rise to at least £12 per hour, which would rise to £15 per hour during this parliamentary session. We will work with all parties to secure that, and we will work with anyone who shares our view and the views of our trade unions that after the applause has fallen silent there must be meaningful action to support our care workers.

It is clear that an NHS recovery plan is urgently needed. We will press the Government to ensure that people who are anxiously awaiting diagnosis and treatment, those who badly need mental health support and the workers who gave their all throughout the pandemic are not forgotten. We will use the power of the Parliament to choose, and we will be by their side.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. As this is my first contribution in the chamber, I congratulate you on being elected to the chair.

We are now in a race against time between the spread of new variants and the number of people who have been vaccinated. That is particularly true in places such as East Renfrewshire in my region and, indeed, Midlothian, where numbers are rising. Many local people and businesses that I have spoken to are extremely anxious, given speculation that East Renfrewshire may move backwards to level 3 restrictions just a matter of days after it moved to level 2.

Past experience has shown us what is required to get outbreaks of the virus under control, and early evidence suggests that vaccines remain effective against the so-called Indian variant. It is imperative that businesses are able to plan as far ahead as possible in the face of spikes such as the ones that we are seeing in East Renfrewshire, particularly given that many staff in businesses have been taken on in anticipation of restrictions easing and they are not covered by United Kingdom furlough schemes.

Does the Deputy First Minister agree that the Government needs to urgently prioritise an action plan for affected areas that will ramp up vaccinations and testing and ensure that there are proper measures for supporting local businesses to survive any changes in restrictions that are put in place at short notice?

took the oath.