Chamber and committees

To ask the First Minister what the Scottish Government’s response is to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine Scotland’s reported warning that the NHS winter resilience plan “will not be in place in time to prevent further harm to patients and staff this winter”. (S6F-01459)

I say to the First Minister that the RCEM emphasised the urgent need to bolster the social care workforce, to help with the discharge of patients from hospital this winter. The Scottish National Party Government is wasting precious time, money and resources on plans to centralise social care services in four years’ time. Does the First Minister agree with the SNP MSP Kenneth Gibson that the national care service is like “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”, or with Michelle Thomson, who said that the proposals are “screaming ... a huge risk”? Will she abandon those plans and focus instead on strengthening social care ahead of the looming winter crisis in the NHS?

Women are watching today. I hope that the SNP is listening. At the heart of this matter is how we make trans people safe without affecting the safety of women and girls. That is the policy question that we, as elected politicians, must answer. It is a fair and balanced framing of the issue.

However, simply for asking that question, women—including the likes of J K Rowling—are being vilified. Their treatment throughout this process has been disgraceful. How are policy makers and members of the public supposed to scrutinise this proposed legislation—or any legislation—when they risk being maligned for doing so? It is our role, and our duty, to examine the consequences, unintended or otherwise, of the laws that we make. As we reflect on the general principles of the bill, we must reflect, too, on the political and public discourse that has surrounded it, and we must learn from it.

The SNP has been attempting to reform the Gender Recognition Act 2004 for half a decade. Despite taking additional time to review its approach, there has been little material change between the plans on which the Scottish Government first consulted in 2017 and the bill that we are debating today.

Following a second consultation, and a delay due to Covid, the SNP-Green Government bulldozed ahead, ignoring the SNP’s own manifesto commitment to work with women on the reforms, until pressure from critical media coverage forced its hand. Meetings with women’s interest groups were hastily arranged, but the bill had already been finalised. It was a tokenistic gesture.

In January this year, the Equality and Human Rights Commission urged caution, calling for a “more detailed consideration” given the potential consequences of reform for data use, competitive sport, barriers facing women, and the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon dismissed women’s views about the bill as “not valid”—a far cry from the “maximum consensus” that the Scottish Government originally said that it was seeking.

There are fundamental issues with the bill’s approach. Those include the lowering of the minimum age for application to 16, the removal of the need for medical evidence and the reduction in the period for which applicants must live in their acquired gender. There are, of course, serious implications for the safety of women in single-sex spaces.

The bill is also scant on detail. The Scottish Government is still unable to tell us precisely what it means to

“live in the acquired gender”

for three months. We still do not know how it is possible to prove a false declaration without the individual confessing to it, which makes the provision a redundant deterrent for misuse.

What of the cross-border implications of the bill? The Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned that it may be difficult for trans people with Scottish GRCs to

“be certain of their legal status in England and Wales.”

The law is supposed to provide clarity, not question marks.

I worked at a senior level in human resources for more than 30 years. Inclusion and diversity are deeply ingrained in my personal and professional outlook. So, too, is safety. The Scottish Government has done nothing to convince me, or many others, that the legislation will not negatively impact the safety of women and girls, as well as the safety of young people who are questioning their gender identity.

This week, a mother wrote to me, imploring me to consider the implications of the bill for young people. Drawing on the incredibly difficult experience of her daughter, she described the legislation as a “sticking plaster” and highlighted the need for profoundly improved supportive mental healthcare for children and adolescents who are exploring their gender identity.

Should the bill be passed, the removal of the requirement for a diagnosis of gender dysphoria will not diminish the distress that a 16-year-old can experience in that situation, but it risks removing the safeguards and clinical support that are available to them. I deeply regret that the Scottish Government will not wait for the full publication of the Cass review before proceeding with the parliamentary passage of the bill, especially with the closure of the Tavistock centre in London next spring.

The intent behind the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill might be good, but the unintended harm could be greater. For that reason, together with the implications for the rights and safety of women and girls, I will vote against the bill at decision time. It is shameful that MSPs from other parties who share my concerns—apart from Ash Regan, who showed tremendous courage—cannot do the same.

Will the member take an intervention on that point?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on the actions that are being taken to recruit teachers in primary and secondary schools. (S6O-01465)

It feels like groundhog day. In September, Nicola Sturgeon told Parliament that she wanted to see immediate improvement in A and E waiting times, but for the third week in a row more than 3,000 patients waited for longer than eight hours to be seen in A and E, and 1,350 patients waited in pain and distress for more than 12 hours—not in hospital beds, but in waiting rooms and corridors. Those are shocking figures, not least because the Royal College of Emergency Medicine has repeatedly warned that such waits can lead to hundreds of avoidable deaths—each one of which is a tragedy.

The current chaos is just the tip of the iceberg, because the situation will only get worse as winter arrives. In September, well before the winter months, NHS Grampian in my region asked people to attend emergency departments only in life-threatening situations. Ambulances have been stacked outside Aberdeen royal infirmary and, because paramedics are treating patients in ambulances that are parked outside A and E doors for hours, the ambulances cannot be dispatched elsewhere.

However, the reality is that A and E waiting times are the symptom of a wider malaise that the SNP has presided over for years. Poor workforce planning and a failure to get a grip on delayed discharge mean that there are simply not enough staff and beds to care for patients. An elastic band can be stretched only so far, and we have reached breaking point.

It is abundantly clear that in order to help to prevent bed blocking we need more social care staff now, but the SNP has instead diverted hundreds of millions of pounds—or even billions, because the Scottish Government is not quite sure whether it is millions or billions—into the creation of a national care service that will not be up and running for another four years.

Meanwhile, cancer treatment waiting times are at their worst level on record, and waiting times for routine treatment continue to mount.

More than a quarter of children and young people are still not being seen by mental health services within 18 weeks, and people are having to wait hours—not minutes—for ambulances to arrive. With Humza Yousaf at the helm, our NHS is on its knees. With the resources that they have, NHS staff are working heroically to provide safe patient care. However, staff on the front line are telling us over and over that the system is simply not sustainable.

Just last month, nurses tried to share their concerns with the health secretary about their increasing workloads, their pay situation and patient safety. Shamefully, Humza Yousaf told them not to patronise him. My blood boiled when I heard that. My sister is a nurse, another is a midwife, and I speak to front-line staff every day, and that was just disgraceful. However, for Humza Yousaf, it was just another photo opportunity before retreating to self-congratulation and the platitudes of the SNP conference.

As the crisis that our NHS faces has gone from bad to worse, the Scottish Conservatives have called many times on the health secretary to completely rethink his NHS recovery plan, and we have urged him to go back to the drawing board on his NHS winter resilience plan. Enough distraction and deflection: Humza Yousaf needs to step up, because people’s lives are at stake.

I think you’re in the wrong debate.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. My app would not work. I would have voted no.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I would have voted no.

Thank you, convener. I think that my question would be answered if Professor Glasby could share with us the figures that he mentioned.