Chamber and committees

I am not aware of any evidence that suggests that that practice is being used this year in a less appropriate way than last year, but if there is evidence that anybody wants to put forward, we will look at it as a matter of urgency. The Educational Institute of Scotland has said that it is

“not aware of this as an issue in schools”.

As Michael Marra rightly says, in a normal academic year, decisions are made about whether it is right to put a young person forward for a qualification or an exam, and such decisions should always be taken in line with the interests of the young person. That will be happening in some cases this year, but if anybody has evidence that it is happening inappropriately, we will, as I said, look at that as a matter of urgency.

Yes, I agree. The detail of the deal should be published in full. I suggest that it should be put to a vote not only in the House of Commons but in this Parliament, so that we can represent the interests of the farming community across Scotland.

I am deeply concerned about the implications of this trade deal and future trade deals for our farming sector in Scotland. I noted, as I am sure others did, the words of the Australian Deputy Prime Minister—just last night, I think—who said:

“The big winners are Australian producers, Australian farmers, indeed Australians full stop.”

When he was asked about Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish beef producers, he said:

“I’m not so worried about those”.

It is not his job to worry about Scottish producers, but the fact that he is not worried suggests that the UK Government is not standing up for those producers’ interests in those talks. Therefore, we should open the issue up to scrutiny, including in Scotland’s national Parliament.

No one wants people to be receiving care in psychiatric hospitals for any longer than is deemed to be clinically necessary in every case. Delays in discharge can be very challenging for individuals, but, for example, significant packages of care often need to be linked to specialist accommodation, which sometimes has to be commissioned, specially designed or even purpose built. That can take considerable time, during which those concerned continue to receive appropriate care in a hospital setting.

To help address the issue, in February this year, the then Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport announced a £20 million community living change fund, to be allocated to integration authorities via health boards. The fund has been made available to help partnerships drive further service redesign, in order to adopt a preventative and anticipatory approach to supporting people who have very complex needs, which can help them avoid the need for institutional care in the future.

Obviously, the whole Parliament has to debate the detail of the legislation that will establish the national care service. However, in principle, that is an important part of it.

I agree that it is important to make sure that people with complex needs have the right care in the community and do not have to be in institutional care when that is not necessary or appropriate. As I tried to set out in my original answer, the challenge is often the complexity of the needs of individuals, which means that it takes time to ensure that the right provision is available in the community. Sometimes, that can mean that accommodation has to be specially designed, commissioned or even purpose built.

There is a real obligation on everybody involved to speed up that process as much as possible, but what is really important is that the right provision is in place for the complexity of the needs of each individual.

That is a really important issue. When the breast screening programme resumed in August last year, it was done in a way that was in line with expert clinical advice and the recommendations of the Scottish screening committee. Initially, patients who receive non-routine appointments were prioritised; more recently, patients between the ages of 50 and 70 who receive routine appointments have been invited. Liam McArthur is right to say that we need to ensure that the service gets back to normal as quickly as possible, but that has to be done safely and in line with expert recommendations.

Although it does not directly address the problem for over-70s, since the screening programme resumed, more than 120,000 people have attended for breast screening. Over a similar period, in normal times before the pandemic, the number was around 135,000. There is work still to be done, but the service is getting back to normal and we want it to get to complete normality as soon as possible.

I want to ensure that every relevant aspect of the handling of this pandemic, whether in general terms or as it affected individuals, is properly and robustly scrutinised. I do not just welcome that scrutiny—I think that it is really important.

With regard to prosecutions, I ask members to cast their minds over the past few months and to think about how often, in completely different contexts, we have heard misguided allegations about how governments have tried to politicise the role of prosecutors. Prosecutors act entirely independently, which is right and proper, and any politician who suggests otherwise should think about that point.

The matters we are discussing are important. Anas Sarwar said today that we should think about those who work hard on the front line of our health service. I agree with that, but there is not a single day that I do not think about them.

Anas Sarwar mentioned care homes. The Audit Scotland report narrated that, before the pandemic, under all Administrations in the lifetime of this Parliament, the Government, through NHS National Services Scotland, did not supply PPE to the care home sector or to primary care. Instead, those sectors used to get it directly from private suppliers. One of the changes that we made was to directly supply the care home sector from the national health service.

There are undoubtedly lessons to learn, but it is not wrong in my view to say that we did not run out and that that was a good thing in the teeth of a global pandemic, when competition for supplies of PPE was so intense. Although I hope that we will not need the same volumes in the future, we now have significantly higher stocks of PPE. The Audit Scotland report and the words of the Auditor General reflect that we have worked hard every step of the way to ensure that our staff had PPE, and we will continue to do that each and every day.

I want to ensure that we are being factually accurate. The figures in this week’s report, which I will address in a second, are for 2019 and pre-date the updated climate change plan, so they take no account of the changes that were in that plan. It is important to be accurate about that.

Scotland is ahead of most other countries in the world, so I do not think that the question is about what we are doing wrong. On climate change, none of us is yet doing enough right to get to the point we need to get to. All of us need to accelerate our progress.

On the question of missed targets, we of course want to hit our targets and we have more to do to get there, but we should not overlook the scale of our progress. This week’s report shows that emissions in Scotland are down by 51.5 per cent—the target was 55 per cent. That means that we are more than halfway to net zero, which is further ahead than the rest of the United Kingdom and further ahead than most other countries across the world. However, there is more to do. We will publish a catch-up to show not only what we are doing through the plan but how we will accelerate to catch up. For example, we see that transport emissions are down year on year but there is more to do there.

All of us across the world have to live up to the challenge. Scotland, like other countries, needs to accelerate progress, but Scotland is already further ahead than most other countries, and I want to make sure that we not only maintain that position but get even further ahead so that we are leading more by example.

We recognise that deviating from our route map impacts on businesses. We have funded additional financial support to businesses in areas in which it has been necessary to retain restrictions for an additional period. We also continue to emphasise to the United Kingdom Government the need for additional funding to be made available for businesses. The situation exemplifies why it is so important that we have the requisite fiscal powers here to respond to the pandemic and, increasingly, to the recovery from it. The furlough scheme also continues to be hugely important to Scottish businesses and workers, and we again call on the UK Government to maintain that support for as long as it is required.

Everybody understands that eating disorders have a devastating impact on individuals and their families. Rapid intervention is essential and must be available. We published the “Scottish Eating Disorder Services Review” in March, and we will announce further steps by the end of June. We will also establish an implementation group to ensure that the review’s recommendations are taken forward quickly. Intensive home treatment is an evidence-based intervention for treating eating disorders, and part of the review group’s work will be to expand such services across Scotland.

In relation to mental health services more generally, as members know, work is on-going to extend the provision of community services, particularly for children and adolescents.

Yes, I agree with it, and I thank Michelle Thomson for raising points that are important to businesses across the country. It is vital that furlough is extended for as long as possible, and the VAT reduction and deferral of loan repayments are important, too. Many companies will have taken advantage of the loans that have been made available. I welcome the fact that loans were made available, but consideration needs to be given to how, when and, in some respects, whether those loans should be repaid by businesses that need to get back to normal and a position of sustainability.

I recognise the responsibility that is on the shoulders of the Scottish Government to do as much as we can, but many of the levers lie in the UK Government’s hands, and it is important that it uses them properly to support business.