Chamber and committees

I will do that very openly today. I am happy to put that in writing as well, but this is a pretty public way of doing it.

There are legal complexities to this and it does not help anyone for me to pretend that there are not. Those are complexities that local authorities and national Government want to work through. It would be my preference to be able to legislate nationally, in order to have a consistency of approach. We know that a forthcoming Supreme Court case, sparked by legislation in Northern Ireland, will undoubtedly have an impact on the legal framework here, but I am very clear in what I want to do.

In the meantime, I want to work with local authorities to see what more can be done to protect women accessing sexual health services, including abortion services. I find what is happening outside hospitals and outside the Sandyford completely and utterly unacceptable. Let me make that clear.

The summit that I have committed to convening will happen this month. It will bring together a range of interests including local authorities and the police. They, of course, operate independently, but there is legislation around antisocial behaviour that may have an impact or relevance here.

I repeat my commitment to finding solutions as quickly as possible. Lastly, I repeat my call to those who want to protest against abortion to come and do that outside this Parliament where the laws are made and to leave women alone and stop trying to intimidate them.

The Scottish Government remains committed to tackling the poverty-related attainment gap. That is evidenced, of course, by our increased investment of £1 billion in the Scottish attainment challenge, which is up by £250 million from the previous parliamentary session. Progress is being made. We can see that in, for example, the record high proportion of full-time, first-degree entrants to university coming from the 20 per cent most deprived areas of Scotland in 2020-21.

There is, however, more to do. The challenge has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which is why we continue to support headteachers through pupil equity funding, and it is why we are funding all 32 local authorities to develop strategic approaches, including in setting their own aims for progress.

Yes, that is an important and serious issue, and there have been acknowledgements from UK Government ministers—principally Michael Gove—that those are serious issues. Neil Gray and I have repeatedly raised the issue, and we will continue to do so in the strongest terms.

The £10,500 per person tariff does not provide adequate funding for local authorities and public services. That tariff is not even provided to local authorities for people who arrive through the family visa route, and I do not think that that is acceptable.

Our local authorities and public services are supporting people, regardless of their visa route. There is a clear need to provide appropriate funding that reflects the unique impact of the implementation of the various UK Government schemes on public services and local communities.

The matter is reserved, of course, but we take our responsibility seriously, and the Scottish Government wants to do as much as it can. The Scottish Government has therefore committed £11.2 million to local authorities to support resettlement and integration and the refurbishment of properties.

Yes, I will consider that. Issues on independent legal representation of victims of rape and sexual violence in the criminal justice system have been raised in particular contexts in the past—for example, where information about the history of the victim has been requested as part of the court process. Those are important issues.

I agree with Pauline McNeill. Sadly, it is simply a statement of fact that, even in our society today, many survivors of rape and sexual assault are often left feeling undersupported and as though they are somehow the guilty parties. That is partly down to attitudes in society. Right now, there is also an impact from backlogs in the court system because of the pandemic, which is why we are working hard to address those.

We are already funding organisations to deliver the equally safe initiatives. We have a duty to consider anything that we can do to better support people who have been affected by such crimes, so I will consider Pauline McNeill’s specific proposal. As for the subject matter of her original question, I again reiterate the voluntary nature of such contact. As I have certainly raised in Government, it is one thing to say that a process is voluntary, but we must ensure that even offering people that option is not heard by victims as somehow suggesting that they are expected to or are being pressured to do that, so the way in which that is implemented will be really important.

I am not going to comment on individual cases, although I am always happy to look at them if they are sent to me.

On the treatment that young people are entitled to expect when they come forward to CAMH services, one of the other things that has been done recently is the publication of the national CAMH service specification, which sets out clear levels of service, and is backed by £40 million of additional investment. We are investing in more staff and reforming the way in which mental health services for young people work. When young people need specialist services, those services should be available to them, which is why the improvements that I talked about in my earlier answer do not go far enough but are important. We are also building up more community-based services so that fewer young people need to be referred to specialist services. For example, we have supported the employment of counsellors in all secondary schools to support young people through early intervention.

We will continue to take steps to invest in and reform mental health services so that they become more preventative and operate on an earlier intervention basis.

Anas Sarwar is right. I have stood here on many occasions and talked about these issues, and we were seeing significant challenges, particularly in mental health, before the pandemic. That is why much of the investment that I have talked about has been made. Part of it is that, as the stigma of mental ill-health reduces, more and more young people are coming forward for help. We should encourage and be positive about that, but it makes it all the more important that the investment and reforms that I am talking about continue, and that is what will happen.

Willie Rennie questions that, but that was how the independent Commissioner for Fair Access described our achievements in access to university by young people from the most deprived communities.

This year, we have a budget that is lower in real terms by more than 5 per cent and is projected to continue to be constrained, notwithstanding the rate of inflation hitting 10 per cent. The sooner this Parliament and this Government are in charge of their own finances and we get them out of the hands of Tories at Westminster, with independence, the better.

I hate to be the one to break it to Liam Kerr, but had we gone with the UK Government’s timescale on the issue, we would have had significantly less money to invest in green ports in Scotland. It is only because of the negotiation of the Scottish Government, and Kate Forbes in particular, that we are getting funding on a par with the funding that freeports in England are getting, and that we are able to have environmental considerations and, crucially—I know that the Tories do not particularly like this—fair work considerations as part of the green port model in Scotland.

After a lot of work on the Scottish Government’s part, we have come to an agreement with the UK Government, and that process is now under way.

I do, and I completely understand why the Tories are shifting so uncomfortably in their seats right now. We knew last week that, largely because of the folly of Brexit, the UK already had the highest rate of inflation of all G7 countries—I think that the rate of inflation in the UK is about double the rate of inflation in France right now. As of this week, we have the quite unbelievable situation of the OECD forecast suggesting that economic growth in the UK next year will be the lowest in OECD countries, with the sole exception of Russia, which right now is rightly subject to global sanctions.

That is the impact of Brexit, and the impact for Scotland of being part of the UK. If the Tories want to argue that that is the union dividend, all I can say is, “Good luck with that.” Rather than being subject to Westminster control, we can choose a better future as an independent, outward-looking country with power over the full range of economic levers to build a better Scotland. The prospectus for an independent Scotland will set out the deficiencies of being governed by Westminster and will point to small independent countries across Europe that, with the powers of independence, are doing so much better than the UK. That should be the inspiration for Scotland.

It is appalling and it displays and gives evidence for what many of us have suspected has been the case for some time. The researchers at the Glasgow Centre for Population Health found that

“Austerity is highly likely to be the most substantial causal contributor to the stalled mortality trends seen in Scotland and across the UK”.

That is down to Tory austerity which, we should remember, was kicked off by Labour under the last Labour Government. We now see the impact of that on people across the country—[Interruption.]