Chamber and committees

I do not think that anybody listening to me would have heard me deflect responsibility on to anyone. This is a collective challenge. Central Government has a leadership obligation, local government has a big obligation—I will come back to that in a second—but we work with fantastic charities and voluntary organisations that do most on the front line.

In relation to affordable housing—this is a statement of fact—Scotland has led the way in the United Kingdom on the delivery of affordable housing. More than 105,000 affordable homes have been delivered since 2007, and more than 70,000 of those are for social rent, which is way in excess of anything that has been done elsewhere in the UK. However, it is about more than that, which is an important point to recognise; it is about the support that is provided to people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Through the ending homelessness together fund, we have already increased funding to enable those on the front line to much more rapidly help people and have access to the funding to do that. I am certainly happy to ask the housing minister to look at whether there is more that we can and need to do ahead of the festive period and into the winter.

I am happy to explore the point about public buildings. Of course, many public buildings are in the ownership not of the Scottish Government, but of local authorities, and there are often issues that they have to deal with around that. We have seen that in Glasgow in recent times. We take all those issues really seriously and we are doing a significant and huge amount of work across all those strands.

I will end on a point of consensus. I agree that, for as long as one person is sleeping rough in our streets, there is more for all of us to do, which is why I will never close my mind to suggestions and proposals, no matter where they come from.

First, I am aware of the concerns that have been raised, and NHS Tayside is also fully aware of those concerns. Let me be very clear—I expect NHS Tayside to properly consider and investigate any issues that are raised, and the Scottish Government has been advised that the board has thoroughly investigated the matters that have been raised. NHS Tayside has provided a comprehensive timeline of correspondence and meetings, which shows that issues relating to breast cancer oncology were openly discussed in a wide range of forums, and the individual who raised those concerns was present at and actively contributed to many of them. However, I repeat that I absolutely expect NHS Tayside to properly investigate any concerns that are raised.

Secondly—and finally, Presiding Officer—we are fully supportive of a continued breast cancer service in NHS Tayside. NHS Tayside currently offers a full breast cancer oncology service, with all patients treated in Tayside, and continues to ensure that there is a focus on recruitment, in order to continue that service for patients across Tayside.

I am happy to ask the relevant minister to make available any recent correspondence. I do not think that I am exaggerating when I say that there are acres of correspondence going back a long time between the Scottish Government and the Home Office about all matters relating to immigration and asylum and, in particular, on the use of hotel accommodation. It is fair to say that the correspondence that comes from the Home Office to the Scottish Government is rarely satisfactory on those matters.

Through its asylum policies, the UK Government treats asylum seekers inhumanely. The use of hotel accommodation in the way that Mark Ruskell has described is just one aspect of that.

How we treat people who are fleeing circumstances that we can scarcely imagine and who are seeking refuge here reflects on who we are as a society. As we go into a new year, I can only hope that the UK Government and the Home Office reflect on those matters and start to treat asylum seekers with the dignity, respect and humanity that they deserve.

That is a really important issue to raise. All over Scotland and the United Kingdom right now, there will be families who are missing loved ones and worrying about their whereabouts, health and wellbeing. If you are one of those loved ones and you are able to pick up the phone to your family, that would be the most wonderful Christmas gift that you could give them. I say to Paul’s family that I hope that you get some news.

I agree that it is important that, as well as the work that the police do, there are services in place to support people in such horrendously distressing situations. I absolutely reiterate Monica Lennon’s advice that there is help available. The Missing People number, 116 000, is there should people need it.

The Scottish Government provides some funding to the Missing People charity to increase awareness and use of its support services among people who are or who have been missing, and their families. That important help is there for people and I encourage anybody who is in such a difficult situation to make use of it.

I end by thanking Monica Lennon for raising such an important issue.

I wish the Presiding Officer, everyone across our Parliament and, indeed, everyone across the country a very happy and safe Christmas. I know that we all hope and wish for a much brighter and healthier new year.

The issue that Douglas Ross has raised is one of the most important issues that the Government is grappling with now and will grapple with over the days to come. In short, the answer to the question is yes, we will make changes just as soon as the public health advice says that the benefits of doing so outweigh the risks of doing so.

To be fair to Douglas Ross, I think that he has captured this point in his question. When we make changes to the self-isolation rules, I want us to try to do that not in a piecemeal way but in an overall, coherent way, so that there are not just changes to the isolation rules for index cases—for those who are infectious—but changes to the rules for contacts, particularly household contacts, who currently have the most stringent isolation rules.

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and I discuss these issues with public health and clinical advisers literally on a daily basis. Given the very fragile stage that we are at with omicron, the advice right now is that we must be careful that, in easing self-isolation, we do not inadvertently allow further spread of the virus and thereby compound rather than alleviate a problem. However, as soon as the public health advice says that it is safe to do so, we will, of course, do so. I hope that, over the next days—certainly the next couple of weeks—we will start to move to a more proportionate system of self-isolation.

I recognise the impact on the economy of people becoming infected and having to self-isolate—in fact, I have cited that as one of the reasons why we need to take omicron very seriously. That is why, from today, we have updated guidance on sector-based exemptions for certain industries to try to alleviate the pressure now, while we consider the wider impact on key sectors of our economy.

Alex Cole-Hamilton would know the answer to that question if he had listened to some of what the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care said.

First, I will address the point about the strategy. We have decided—I think rightly—to take a bit longer over a longer-term strategy for workforce planning so as to take proper account of the experience of and the lessons learned through the Covid pandemic, and to take proper account of our on-going work to integrate health and social care through a national care service. That is not the same as saying that we are not taking action now.

Perhaps the most important thing that we have done is to fund the recruitment of 1,000 more members of staff to deal, in the immediate term, with some of the issues that Alex Cole-Hamilton is addressing. There are short-term pressures that we are funding health boards and local authorities to deal with now, while we learn properly from the experience of Covid in relation to longer-term workforce planning. That is a sensible approach to take through what is an emergency crisis situation for health and social care.

I return to the point that we need to suppress the virus to allow all those services to start to get back to normal.

I will ask the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care to look at the specific issue of the demand capacity review’s implications for Prestonpans and to write to Martin Whitfield.

More generally, given that we are at Christmas, I pay tribute to our paramedics and ambulance technicians across the country. They do an outstanding job in circumstances that the rest of us can only imagine, and my gratitude to them is deep and very long standing.

It is important that where change in the health service is being contemplated, not just at Christmas and not just in the Ambulance Service—and let us not forget that the motivation for such changes, whether or not people agree with the detail, is to improve the service to patients—those who deliver the services should be fully involved in making those decisions.

When I previously did Humza Yousaf’s job, as Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, I would often have that discussion with the trade unions, and with the Ambulance Service and its management, to ensure that that happened. It is really important that those views are taken into account.

Those are my views in principle. On the specific issues around Prestonpans, I will ask the health secretary to respond in more detail.

I thank Emma Harper for raising the subject. Like all of us of a certain age, I vividly remember switching on the television that night and being utterly horrified by the scenes that were unfolding.

Those memories, even for those of us who were not directly affected, do not dim with the passing of years, and for those who were directly affected, this time of year must be particularly hard.

I therefore take the opportunity to mark the sadness of the anniversary, which is a sad moment every year, and to remember all those in Lockerbie for whom those memories are very painful; all those who lost loved ones; and all those who were affected in any way. I thank the emergency services and those who responded that evening, who, I am sure, still live with those very painful memories. I also thank the journalists who reported on the disaster. I have spoken directly to some who reported from Lockerbie that evening, and they will never forget the horror that they encountered there.

It is a dark moment in Scotland’s history that we will never, ever forget. For now, our thoughts are with everyone who was directly affected.

As I know how much Christine Grahame works to keep me on my toes in her current role, I have always considered myself lucky not to have been a pupil in one of her classrooms when she was a teacher. She is probably thinking that she is not old enough to have been one of my teachers—I am not sure whether she is correct there. [Laughter.] I can feel an unusual unity of sympathy for me right now across the chamber, so I will swiftly move on.

We will continue to do everything that we can to support teachers as we try to get education back to normal. I said the other day, and I will repeat, that our priority is to keep schools open and not to have further disruption to children’s education. However, I recognise how difficult that is for teachers. Our main way of supporting teachers now is to recruit more of them into classrooms and, as I said, to reduce class contact time so that their overall workload is eased.

Christine Grahame raises an important point, which allows me to recognise again how vital the contribution of teachers has been during the pandemic.

Some changes to definitions have taken place, which means that the figures need to be treated with a degree of caution, but it is important to recognise the overall point. The overall numbers of teachers are rising. Although teachers who focus specifically on additional support needs are vital, to support children with additional needs is a job and a responsibility for all teachers. Our investment in recruitment and the rise in the numbers of teachers are important for the support of children with additional needs as well as for pupils generally.