Chamber and committees

The latest Public Health Scotland report states:

“We therefore cannot completely exclude alcohol treatment as an alternative explanation for the observed impact on alcohol-attributable deaths and admissions.”

Does Public Health Scotland plan on doing any more work on alcohol treatment services and the effect that they have on alcohol-related hospitalisations and deaths?

I have one follow-up question for Dr. Shivaji. Is MUP, in your view, being billed as the magic bullet, to the detriment of other support and solutions for people with alcohol dependence? You have highlighted that further work will be done. I suppose that my concern is that surely addiction to alcohol should be addressed holistically rather than using just one lever.

Thank you.

Figures for alcohol-specific deaths registered in 2022 show that the number of female deaths tragically rose by 31 to 440 while, as you mentioned earlier, the number of male deaths remained unchanged. Why is that?

Just give us a view if you can, Tara.

That does not actually answer my question. My background is as a human resources professional. Normally, you would do a risk assessment and then, on the back of that, you would make sure that you have a training programme in place—ideally before the staff start. What you are saying is that the staffing is being done, but the complete risk assessment and the training programme have not yet been done.

It is good that the strategy recognises the importance of the perinatal period for mothers, but it does little to deliver. Last year, a consultation on extending mother and baby unit provision found that most respondents wanted another unit outside the central belt, as many of them were from the NHS Grampian area. After requesting an update on progress, I was told yesterday that a report will be published once the options have been fully considered and the next steps have been determined. Will the minister finally listen to women and tell them when that will be?

In 2018, the SNP minister said that the Government would restore 20,000 hectares of peatland as part of the climate action plan. The latest figure, as of today, is that only 7,000 acres have been restored.

Thank you for that question. I will come to Stonehaven and the huge difference between what happened in Stonehaven and what happened in Brechin later in my speech. I also refer to Ms Forbes’s comment; if the water rises 2 feet, the flood defence needs to be 3 feet, so I challenge that intervention.

Seven years later, Brechin was in the eye of storm Babet. Floodwaters raged through River Street and beyond, destroying homes and endangering lives and livelihoods. The farming community, which sustained huge losses, and residents do not want words, rehashed rhetoric and recycled policy pledges from this SNP-Green Government. They want to know what happened, why it happened and how it can be fixed. They want to see leadership, but the SNP-Green Government does not have a coherent plan in place for how it will help these communities recover.

Council budgets cannot stretch to provide the financial support that is needed. Funds from the Bellwin scheme, once they are mobilised, are welcome but will not touch the sides of what is required. Local authority areas have already had to cut much cloth because of year-on-year cuts to their general revenue budgets by the SNP Government.

In Angus, there were reports of sandbag rationing, with homes and businesses having as few as two per property, as we heard today, to keep out two months’ worth of rain. That led to a grey market, with people selling sandbags on social media, which should not be happening if a council is properly prepared and funded. Angus Council pledged £250,000 of its rapidly disappearing general fund to help with the aftermath, but when it is gone, it is gone. That is just a small drop in the ocean of what is needed in the days and weeks ahead.

In Brechin, I was shocked by the widespread damage and devastation. I saw locals distraught as they tried to salvage what they could from their homes. Two elderly people, one with a chest infection, returned to their damp flat with mud still on the floors, and it was not just mud, because we all know what is in the mud. They had a dehumidifier churning away, but it had little impact on the damp, the smell and the decay. A “Home Sweet Home” sign was discarded on the street with other ruined household items for the council to collect. Children’s fridge magnets were stuck in the pavement mud, and the pathos was not lost on people walking past.

The heart-wrenching human cost of storm Babet has been considerable. The financial cost will run to tens of millions of pounds. Home owners who have insurance have been speaking to assessors and feeling like they are on a merry-go-round of phone calls and frustration. Others do not have insurance because of the flood risk and the sky-high premiums, because insurers did not account for that £16 million flood defence to protect residents, and they cannot afford to refurbish or rebuild.

One resident whose ground floor was completely flooded told me that she had no contact from Angus Council before or after the storm. Fortunately, her power did not cut out, because if she was not online at the time, she would not have known to evacuate her property. What happened was dangerous, she said.

Other residents have issued desperate pleas for the river to be dredged in targeted areas and have questioned whether measures to protect marine life are having an impact on human life. As Councillor Gavin Nicol, who is here today, has urged, environmental protection should take a back seat when the human cost is so high.

Some residents also question the water and landscape management further up the glens and the role of SEPA, which has taken a long time to get back to full functioning after the serious cyberattack three years ago. Katy Clark mentioned the huge funding cuts to SEPA. People in the gallery will have questions on peatlands. Peatland management is thousands of years old and is not in its infancy.

I am disappointed—but I am glad that the people of Brechin could see it—that the minister did not take a single intervention from Opposition members but took them from her own party. That is another example of the SNP battening down the hatches, and, Ms Adam, another ministerial task force—really? One hurdle is that, as Stephen Kerr pointed out, there is too much talking and not enough action—and that is a case in point. Does that sound familiar? We have a review, then a consultation, then results are published and then reports gather dust. The process repeats itself. More taxpayers’ money is washed away and no nettles are grasped. Màiri McAllan says that she is absolutely committed to learning and asks why we do not believe her. I would say, “Get on with it.”

Questions have arisen, too, about why Stonehaven’s newer flood defences held when Brechin’s were overtopped. I hope that Ms McAllan will listen to this point rather than talking to her colleague, because this goes back to her question earlier. To answer that question, the climate change allowance, which factors in changes in peak river flow and rainfall intensity, is a key consideration. I understand that Stonehaven’s allowance is higher than Brechin’s, and that that is a result of updates to guidance from SEPA and Stonehaven’s newer scheme. As work gets under way to repair Brechin’s flood defences, it is vital that they are future proofed. Seven years is a short shelf life for a £16 million project that was designed to provide a once-in-200-years standard of defence. There are lessons here for other flood defence schemes across Scotland. We need innovative thinking.

Our councils are woefully underfunded, while the SNP Government is poorly prepared for adverse weather events such as storm Babet. One of my colleagues said today, “This SNP Government couldn’t run a bath.” I say to Mr Swinney that this SNP Government is throwing millions at reserved matters, foreign embassies, doomed legal cases, a botched census and failing ferries. Maurice Golden highlighted that storm Babet was one of the costliest weather events in Scottish history, with a repair bill that could hit £0.5 billion.

The farmers and the people of Brechin and the north-east need to know that the SNP Government has not forgotten them. The SNP constituency MSP, Mairi Gougeon, was missing in action, seeming to appear only for photo ops with her boss. The people of Brechin want to feel safe and protected in their homes. We have a long way to go before they do.

Will the cabinet secretary take an intervention on that point?