Chamber and committees

Reducing the time for endometriosis diagnosis to under a year is a key aim in the women’s health plan. Work on that is already being undertaken by the national health service centre for sustainable delivery, which is developing a pelvic pain pathway, starting with endometriosis.

Over the past year, the Scottish Government has funded Endometriosis UK to carry out research to identify the challenges to diagnosis in primary care and the implementation of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guideline on endometriosis.

It is an important priority for many women across the country and we are committed to seeing real improvements in that area.

I have two points to make about the pandemic. First, anybody who stands up in the chamber and tries to pretend that the pandemic has not had an extremely significant impact on all of this is insulting people’s intelligence and lacking any credibility.

Secondly, in the midst of a global pandemic, it is important that Governments respond to circumstances, that they adapt and that they are flexible. That is what this Government has done and will continue to do. I make no apologies for making sure that, when there is a need, we provide extra funding and take new initiatives to help the health service cope with an unprecedented set of circumstances.

Of course, it is true that our NHS was under pressure before the pandemic, but Douglas Ross does not want to look at the progress that was being made then in tackling exactly those problems. For example, if we look at the waiting times improvement plan, which was published in October 2018, we see that the number of out-patients who were waiting for their first appointment had reduced by 21 per cent in the 18 months up to March 2020, just before the pandemic struck. The numbers who were waiting for more than 12 weeks had fallen by more than 32 per cent. The number of patients who were waiting for more than six weeks for a key diagnostic test had reduced by more than 25 per cent. More in-patient treatments were being offered and more patients were being seen.

The point that I am making is that there were challenges and that those challenges were being addressed. Real progress was being made.

I suspect that the members concerned do not want to hear what I am saying because they do not want to hear what this Government has done to protect shipbuilding jobs in Scotland.

The focus of Ferguson’s is on completing the two ferries that are currently delayed. I hope that the work that is under way at Ferguson’s will equip the yard to compete for new orders and new contracts in the future, but let us not lose sight of the fact that, without the Government’s intervention, there would be no Ferguson’s shipyard and the hundreds of jobs that are currently dependent on it would not even exist.

Across the city of Glasgow, the vast majority of libraries are open and available to people. A small number of libraries are not open, and there are reasons for that, which I know the council has set out. We indicated the provision of some further financial support to councils to get and keep libraries open, given the strong recognition of their importance in communities.

On the wider issues around funding for local government, we are entering the budget process and the Scottish Government will set out the budget for the next financial year in early December, as was confirmed this week. We will have discussions across the chamber about the budget, as we always do, and we will have discussions with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities about the local government settlement. We will, as we have done every year, in difficult financial circumstances, be as fair to local government as we can possibly be.

Of course, any member and, indeed, any party has the ability to come to the finance secretary and say where they want to see more money allocated. All that I would say is that, if they want to do that, they also have to say where they think that money should come from. That offer is open to parties across the Parliament.

I am very happy to consider any sensible proposal. Of course, sentencing is a matter for courts and judges. Judges retain, even in respect of short sentences, the discretion to pass the most appropriate sentence, based on the facts of the case, which includes a custodial sentence if they decide that the alternatives are not appropriate. Statistics show that the proportion of people who are given community sentences for convictions under the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 has actually remained very similar over the past 10 years. Nonetheless, we will consider any reasonable proposal.

This Government has supported the police throughout the pandemic, and we will continue to do so. Again, I express my deep gratitude to the police for everything that they have done in these really difficult circumstances. During our time in government, we have maintained the number of police officers above the level that we inherited, while we have seen numbers of police officers decline considerably in other parts of the United Kingdom. We will continue to support our police in all possible ways. I will end where I started, by thanking the police for what they do and condemning, in the strongest possible terms, anybody who chooses to abuse or attack our police officers.

That will be the stark choice that many could face if appropriate action is not taken. I would not say that we have had any assurances from the UK Government to the effect that those choices will be avoided. We will continue to press for those assurances.

As we have been discussing in the context of the national health service, for all sorts of reasons and in different ways, the period ahead will be more difficult than any winter that most of us can remember. It is incumbent on all Governments—including the Scottish Government—to support people through the winter. Where issues are reserved to the UK Government, as many of the energy cost issues are, it is incumbent on the UK Government to do everything that it can to help, too.

I have already referred to two appropriate things that the UK Government can do: it can not go ahead with the cut to universal credit and it can consider additional financial support for low-income households to give then specific help with energy cost rises. We will continue to press the UK Government to do those two things.

Yes. In principle, of course it does. I am not going to comment on individual cases, because people’s circumstances will be different, but I would say that the principles behind that statement should apply to anyone with any health condition. Nobody should feel pressured to go to work if their health says that it is not right for them to be at work. That applies in relation to people who have suffered from Covid and, given the nature of long Covid, it absolutely should apply to those suffering from that condition as well.

It was very good to visit Prestwick yesterday, and it was actually quite a good news day—Prestwick airport set out the next details of its spaceport bid. I was visiting Spirit AeroSystems, which has just opened a new innovation centre that is obviously a very important part of the aerospace cluster there. It was a good news day in Prestwick, which is a part of the country that is very close to my heart.

It is the Government’s intention to return the airport to the private sector, and that has always been the case. Obviously, the process of doing that has been impacted by Covid. We will set out further details of that in due course.

Finally, I make a point that I made to Anas Sarwar in relation to Ferguson’s. It was right that we kept Prestwick airport open, and it was right that we invested to protect the jobs and the economic activity there. Those are often the things that Labour calls on us to do in the abstract, but, when it comes to putting our money where our mouth is, metaphorically speaking, Labour is just full of criticism. This Government, again, is the one that, time after time, actually stands up for jobs and industry.

It is not easy—in fact, it may not even be possible—to put a number on the lives that have been saved because of vaccination, but there is no doubt in my mind that that number is significant. We see in the breaking of the link between cases and the numbers in hospital and dying—although both numbers are still higher than we would want them to be—that vaccines are preventing people from becoming seriously ill and are undoubtedly preventing people from dying. That is beyond any argument or doubt.

I say to people who are genuinely worried about vaccination, perhaps because they have read some of the misinformation that some have chosen to circulate, that they should think about it, please. They should go to a clinic, speak to a vaccinator, raise their concerns, have those concerns addressed, and then get vaccinated, please. The vaccines are safe and incredibly effective in saving lives and preventing illness. Getting vaccinated is the single most important thing that any of us can do to protect ourselves and others.

I have nothing but contempt for those who knowingly spread misinformation about vaccines. People who do that are not only putting themselves at risk; they are putting others and the country as a whole at risk. I hope that anybody in that category will think long and hard about the great disservice that they are doing to everybody in Scotland.

I am happy consider that. There will be variations in case rates and, unfortunately, numbers of people dying in different parts of the country. It is not yet fully understood why that is the case, but I am sure that, for some time to come, there will be a lot of inquiry and investigation into it. It is also the case that Covid has underlined the need for other services in particular parts of the country, so I will give consideration to that in the context of the learning in relation to the member’s constituency.