Chamber and committees

I will take that as a compliment, convener.

Mary Ramsay submitted a petition in May 2019—six years ago—asking for some kind of adequate provision for essential tremor. I understand that she has been ably assisted by Rhoda Grant MSP, so I have not been acting for her personally. Over that time, Rhoda has been persistent, as has the petitioner, who has lodged no fewer than six submissions arguing that there should be ultrasound capacity in Scotland to provide a national service. There is no such capacity, despite the fact that, in 2018, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence issued guidance recommending that there should be. For quite a while, Covid was used as an argument for not doing anything, and, since then, NHS Scotland’s national services division has repeatedly argued that there is not enough money to do it.

The petitioner estimates that 100,000 people in Scotland suffer from essential tremor, which is a serious neurological condition. However, there seems to be no treatment in Scotland, despite the fact that NICE has recommended that there should be. Moreover, there is treatment in England. I am told that the relevant ultrasound equipment exists in Liverpool and London—it may exist in more places now, as that information is a couple of years old. That means that patients from Scotland who are referred for treatment have to travel to Liverpool or London. Perhaps your officials can come back to me with a specific number for how much that costs, cabinet secretary, because that money is completely wasted and could have been used to provide a service in Scotland much more cheaply.

I put it to you, cabinet secretary, that this is manifestly a pretty farcical failure. The responses from the Scottish Government that we have had have just said, “Well, there is no money and we are not really doing anything,” despite what the NICE guidelines say.

Is this not a manifest failure to put in place proper provision, as has been done in England, for a large number of people in Scotland who suffer from a debilitating neurological condition?

I will move on to the first question. How does the cabinet secretary see the NHS’s ability to recover from the problems of Covid, which were, plainly, all-engulfing? What is his personal commentary on how successful—or otherwise—the NHS has been in restoring the full provision of services to patients across Scotland?

That will happen next February, then. Can people wait until then?

That is very diplomatically put. However, I think that the ministers would regard me not as a marriage guidance counsellor but more of an agony uncle.

Mr Lumsden has raised some salient points, many of which I agree with. Those include the threat to the stability of the grid from the impending closure of nuclear stations and the uncertainty surrounding Peterhead. Without base load and back-up, it is more difficult to provide stability and synchronicity—and, therefore, inertia—to the grid. This is a technical topic, where more facts, more scientific analysis and less politics would be extremely useful in Britain.

Aside from that, the Robert Gordon University report, which I think was written by Paul de Leeuw, whom I know, warned that the oil and gas industry in the UK could lose 400 jobs every fortnight, which is a staggering figure. There is a lot more that could be said, in particular that Britain cannot have industry unless energy costs are on a par with those of our European neighbours, at least—which they are not. Therefore, industry is likely to cease to exist in Britain, where it is energy intensive, within the next five years. That is a point that one does not hear very much.

I have raised a few issues, and my suggestion as to what we do with the petition is this. I hesitate to recommend closing the petition, although I know that the pressure is there. Instead, we should write to the Government, suggesting that there should be a full debate on the matter in the Parliament. I suggest that we have two full days on energy, or at least one day, which would allow us to have a proper debate, with lengthy contributions from people—from all parties—who have an interest in the topic. It is a complicated, wide-ranging debate.

The idea that we cannot have an energy policy because of developments, as Mr Lumsden has described, is absurd. There are developments all the time. That is not a reason for not having a policy; it is a pretext.

It is reasonable for us to suggest that the degree of interest in the matter is such that there should be a parliamentary debate on it. I note that the petitioner is a student studying the economics of renewable energy at Heriot-Watt University, and she has made a lot of useful points to us. We should raise the issues with the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Energy at the thematic evidence session that we will be having soon. That will probably have to be quite a long session. I am sure that many members would wish to participate, and rightly so.

I have two issues with regard to the first area we are looking at—patient experience. The cabinet secretary is well aware that I have raised the issue of vaccination services incessantly since 2022, because the general practitioner contract was taken away from GPs and centralised in 2018. Not only has that been a complete catastrophe in the Highlands; as the cabinet secretary knows, it is also believed to have directly led to the death of an infant—not in my constituency, but in the Highlands—because the mother did not get notice of the necessary vaccine for the pertussis virus, or whooping cough, at the right time.

Cabinet secretary, despite my raising that matter with you and the First Minister, and despite the fact that, as I understand it, you have now said that the contract should be returned to GPs, it still has not been. Therefore, people from all over the Highlands have to travel to Inverness. It is sometimes a journey that they cannot make themselves, because of infirmity, because they lack access to a car or other means of transport or because they have to get their parent or friend to take time off work. Is centralisation not completely wrong? Why did the Scottish Government allow it to happen in the first place? When will such services be restored to GPs?

I raise a question of which I have given notice to the cabinet secretary regarding the pause on capital funding for new primary care, and the particular example, in my constituency, of the Culloden medical practice, which has been seeking to move to new purpose-built premises for many years. It is the only practice in the Highlands that has had to close its books to new patients, simply because of the huge pressure of the number of patients on its list. I know that similar pressures might well exist in other parts of Scotland—most of the parts of Midlothian, for example—so this is not only about my constituency, but about a wider issue.

The practice has a tough decision to make. Does it wait for the new premises that it really needs or go for a temporary solution of portakabins, which will cost £300,000 pounds? It does not know, because it does not know when the pause will be lifted. Not only is the pause preventing the service to people in my constituency, who cannot get into the practice, but the practice itself is hamstrung, because it is not armed with information to enable it to make an informed, rational decision.

Cabinet secretary, I suggest that the money can easily be found from the public sector heat decarbonisation fund of £200 million, through which, in one case, the Scottish Government saw fit to spend an estimated £3,560,000 on a building worth £275,000—so, 13 times more than the building’s value. Instead of throwing money away on such ridiculous, preposterous expenditure, it would be better to spend it on the health service, which is really important to people’s lives in Scotland right now.

It will be an announcement. It is another prequel—part of a never-ending process.

Fair enough.

When can we expect the infection prevention and control strategy to be published?