Chamber and committees

I am sorry, convener—I came in late.

Good morning, minister. My question is more or less the same as the questions asked by my colleagues Jeremy Balfour and Emma Roddick. What can the Scottish Government do to give clarity to the definition of kinship care? Will the Government consider legislative change?

What steps is the Scottish Government taking to ensure that international students are not subject to racial profiling when trying to access accommodation in Scotland?

The motion sets out something for Scotland to aspire to, but, as always, the devil will be in the detail and in the Scottish Government’s commitment to follow up in practice the aims that it has set out in principle. In order to judge the merits of the implementation plan, we must first look at the context in which it comes to us.

I cannot address all aspects of the Promise in the time that I have, so I will focus instead on a couple of key parts. One of the focuses of the Promise and the implementation plan is, of course, support for the workforce who are involved in care. People in poverty are overrepresented in kinship care. We must wonder how we have fallen into that situation in the first place while also welcoming any commitment to addressing it.

The motion notes

“the additional challenges that have emerged”

due to the pandemic, but challenges existed in the care system well before the pandemic.

I will focus on kinship care, where some of the least represented people in society are overrepresented in the care system. People from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds are overrepresented in kinship care. If we are to tackle structural inequalities, we need to understand how they were built up and how they interact. As we proceed with keeping the Promise, we must be assured that people who have been forgotten before will not be forgotten again.

That takes me to my next point. A point that jumped out at me as I read the reports of the independent care review is one that I have noticed again and again during my time as a member of this Parliament, usually in the context of considering the most vulnerable people in society: there is not enough data. As well as addressing the structural inequalities in the system, keeping the Promise must include a commitment to not just keeping data on people in care but publishing and analysing that data, so that we, in this Parliament, and the Scottish public can have confidence that the plan is on track.

The Scottish Labour amendment addresses that point. The targets and outcomes to do with the care plan must be measurable so that progress can be evaluated, with the full transparency that the people in our care system deserve.

I have said before that this Parliament cannot operate in the dark. On an issue as important as this, we must have confidence that we are keeping the Promise, not keeping a secret.

Many constituents have told me that, due to the total lack of NHS provision in their areas, they have been left with untreated dental pain and conditions and that they often miss check-ups that could spot life-threatening conditions such as oral cancer. Does the First Minister realise that she is increasingly overseeing not even a two-tier system, because, for many people in Scotland, dentistry is effectively privatised already?

To ask the First Minister what action the Scottish Government is taking to ensure that people are able to register with national health service dental practices and receive NHS dental treatments in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. (S6F-00929)

A constituent has recently argued that they believe that the estimated energy bill that they were given during the latest wave of the pandemic was excessive. Has the Scottish Government had any discussion with Ofgem on the use of estimated bills when meter readings cannot be taken?

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. As many members know, I come from a background in the food business, and the issue of good food is close to my heart.

I commend the work of the committee in examining the bill and allowing us now to debate its merits. The aims of the bill, as stated in its policy memorandum, sound very noble. They include a commitment to Scotland producing, selling and eating good food, a decline in dietary diseases, and the encouragement of healthy and environmentally sound food production. However, what we have before us lacks significant detail, even when we take into consideration the fact that it is a framework bill.

As the committee’s report notes, Scottish ministers have admitted that they did not have to legislate in order to create good food plans for Scotland but did so because they wanted to give the plans “teeth”. We are left to wonder why the ways in which the good food nation plans might bite are not made clearer in the bill.

I agree with the Scottish Food Coalition’s assessment that there should, at the very least, be a purpose on the face of the bill. That purpose should enshrine the right to food as one of its first principles because, when it comes to good food, surely all else must flow from that. That becomes even more relevant given the cost of living crisis that people now face, but there could be so much more.

The Scottish Food Coalition also suggests including in the bill objectives that are based around the UN’s sustainable development goals.

We could enshrine and protect Scotland’s place as a fair trade nation in the bill, which would ensure that we consider sustainable development across the world when we import the food that we cannot grow ourselves. The fact that there is no such vision in the bill before us feels like a missed opportunity.

There is also a wider point about the Scottish Government’s legislative agenda. The cross-party group on international development last week heard about the prospect of a wellbeing and sustainable development bill, which was also promised in the Scottish National Party manifesto at the last election. Apparently, that bill is intended to enshrine policy coherence on sustainable development in the Scottish Government’s legislative and regulatory approaches to governing. Why, then, are the principles of wellbeing and sustainable development not reflected in this bill? Will it have to be amended by the other bill? It is for all of us in the Parliament to foresee those problems and deal with them at later stages, but I worry that it shows a lack of joined-up thinking in the Scottish Government’s approach to the frameworks that it seeks to build.

We must ensure that framework bills provide adequate room for the Parliament to scrutinise the Scottish Government’s plans. As several respondents to the consultation on the bill have noted, that is another aspect that is sorely lacking from what we see in front of us. It was only a few weeks ago that many of us here were criticising the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the reliance on common frameworks that shut this Parliament out of decision making on matters of great importance to Scotland. We should not accept another framework being created that shuts the Parliament out of decisions and only adds to executive power. That must be dealt with in later stages.

My assessment is that the principles behind the bill are admirable but it is held back by a lack of imagination regarding the good that it could do and by a lack of avenues for scrutiny when it comes to the involvement of the Parliament. If we agree to the motion today, we should take with us a determination to repair those issues at the later stages of the bill.

On that basis, I will vote in favour of the general principles of the bill.

No.

My question is for Emma and David. How is it possible to plan six years ahead, given the current levels of economic and price volatility?