Chamber and committees

I thank Marie McNair for her long-standing commitment to the cause of action on mesothelioma and for bringing this important debate to the chamber ahead of action mesothelioma day 2026.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate, as I have a close relative in England who was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma two years ago. I also represent the Bathgate constituency, which was home to a wide range of heavy industry, where asbestos use was endemic. It has also been at the forefront of securing justice, with landmark legal cases such as that relating to the Atlas steel foundry in the town of Armadale, in my constituency, helping to shape asbestos liability in Scotland.

At the point of my relative’s diagnosis, even family members who had heard of mesothelioma had little idea of what living with the illness would mean. As the cancer disproportionately affects communities where heavy industry was present and can have such a long latency period, raising awareness of mesothelioma will enable people with symptoms to present earlier and, in the case of diagnosis, will enable patients to be moved as soon as possible on to the best specialist care pathways, so that their quality of life can be maximised, which I am pleased to say was the case for my relative.

Although we are fortunate to have such a strong mesothelioma treatment infrastructure in Scotland, our industrial past and the historical prevalence of industries with heavy asbestos use mean that we also have a disproportionately high number of cases. That is why I commend all that the Scottish mesothelioma network is doing to improve patient care throughout Scotland.

My family knows from experience the massive difference that treatment by a specialist mesothelioma team makes not only to medical outcomes but to mental wellbeing and everyday quality of life. It is essential that everyone who is diagnosed with mesothelioma is able to benefit from specialist treatment wherever they are and whatever their background. To that end, the drive to foster co-operation between treatment hubs, as well as research institutions, is welcome.

It is also essential to ensure that patients everywhere are able to benefit from the latest treatments. Fantastic, innovative research on the condition is working to improve outcomes for mesothelioma patients. That includes the development of new, more effective therapies and better drug delivery techniques.

We must also acknowledge that we are able to have this debate due to generations of campaigners who have worked tirelessly for decades to raise awareness and achieve justice for those affected by asbestos-related disease. Those campaigners have also had to fight hard to hold companies in the asbestos industry to account. The industrial use of asbestos might be a thing of the past, but its legacy still hangs over many of the people who worked with it.

Every member will mark international workers memorial day in their constituencies to mourn those who have lost their lives and to fight for safer conditions for workers today. We must be guided by this message: remember the dead, but fight for the living. Those cannot be just words. The memory of historical injustice must drive our actions today, tomorrow and every day after, as future generations deserve to live without fear of asbestos-related illness. However, with patients generally contracting mesothelioma decades after exposure to asbestos, it will continue to be necessary to build the medical and support infrastructure that is needed to deal with it as well as with other complex and incurable conditions caused by asbestos.

I thank Marie McNair once again for bringing the matter to the chamber for debate. We must continue to raise awareness of this cancer and continue improving outcomes for those affected by a legacy that should never have been theirs to bear.

17:37

Does the member accept that there is a cost to inaction if we do not tackle climate change? The UK Climate Change Committee reported last month that inaction to adapt is predicted to cost us between 1 per cent and 5 per cent of UK gross domestic product—that is, between £60 billion and £260 billion per year if we do not act. We are seeing that today with disruption to travel, damage to property and infrastructure and, in extreme cases, risk to life. There is a cost to that.

I point members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, which states that I am an elected member on West Lothian Council. Will the minister provide an update on how the Scottish Government is ensuring that local government and the national health service are working together to deliver complex care packages for those who need them?

I thank the minister for that statement on what is one of the saddest anniversaries for our country.

Ten years on from the Brexit vote, Scotland’s artists, musicians and creative professionals continue to face significant barriers to working and touring in Europe. Those challenges have contributed to fewer touring opportunities and reduced international career development, particularly for young and emerging artists. Although many of the key levers remain reserved to the UK Government, can the minister outline what further action the Scottish Government is taking to support Scotland’s artists and creative sectors, including through advocating for the UK’s participation in programmes such as Creative Europe and its successor, AgoraEU?

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I am an elected member of West Lothian Council.

Affordable and reliable public transport is not a luxury but an essential public service. If we are serious about tackling the cost of living and encouraging people on to public transport, price really matters, so I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to a £2 fare cap across Scotland. That is the next logical step to enable us to build on the success of schemes such as the under-22s scheme, which—as we have heard today—has reached 300 million journeys since it was introduced.

Earlier this week, when I knew that I would be speaking in the debate today, I mapped out my family's travel patterns for the week and compared the time and costs of the journeys that I have to make both with a car and without one. Between work, school runs and clubs, shopping and evening meetings, I calculated that I would need around nine hours of travel time with a car. Without one, that doubled to more than 18 hours, not to mention missing many of the tighter meetings in the schedule.

For some of those journeys, there was almost no feasible alternative to the car, but not every journey was a clear-cut choice. Where trips could easily be made by bus, cost became crucial. When all other factors are broadly equal but public transport is more expensive, people will understandably choose the car where they are able to do so. If we want people to be able to leave their cars at home, we must therefore make public transport the natural choice: we must ensure that it is faster, more affordable, safe and seamlessly integrated into their lives, as we have heard today. The £2 fare cap is part of that process.

Countries such as the Netherlands and Germany have shown what can be achieved through making sustainable travel the easy choice, but that requires long-term thinking and long-term investment. During the four years that I spent living in the Netherlands, it was the country’s transport policies that made the biggest difference to my quality of life. Its integrated transport card allows people to seamlessly combine train, bus or tram in a single affordable journey. The cities are quieter and have better air quality and the safer streets enable young people there to have independence earlier in their lives. That is the prize for us, and it is what we should be working towards.

Sadly, however, that is not the experience of many communities across Scotland. In West Lothian, some bus services have been withdrawn at incredibly short notice, with no consultation of the people they are meant to serve. Villages have been entirely cut off early in the evening, with no Sunday service, and in some of the most deprived parts of my constituency, people are having to use taxis to access medical appointments or do a weekly shop—and that is in the central belt.

In many cases, there is no choice between using car or bus. The most recent census showed that more than 20 per cent of residents in West Lothian had no access to a car, so, without affordable public transport, the risk is that those people become isolated in their communities and lose access to vital public services.

Our fragmented bus network too often fails the passengers it is meant to serve, and it is a result of bus services being run according to commercial profitability rather than public need. That is why the Scottish Government has pursued subsidised travel schemes that help to sustain services and why we continue to explore greater public control through franchising partnerships and public ownership. Where public ownership exists, we can see the benefits, which we have heard about today. Lothian Buses has returned tens of millions of pounds to the public purse over the past decade. That money has been reinvested into services rather than distributed to private shareholders.

The success of removing peak rail fares is evident—it makes the train a more affordable and accessible option and it grows people’s use of it. Where public confidence in a service grows, so, too, does its sustainability. If we fail to provide an alternative to car use, we lock families into higher transport costs, increase congestion and the impact on our economy, and make it harder to meet our climate ambitions.

The £2 fare cap is a step towards a system that is fairer, more affordable and more accessible. If we all accept that transport is an essential service, we must ensure that it is delivered for the public good and that it is accessible to everyone who relies on it.

I support the motion, and I look forward to the cap coming to West Lothian as soon as possible.

16:20

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, as I am an elected member of West Lothian Council.

I welcome the Scottish Government’s clear commitment to delivering a Winchburgh station, including reference to it in this year’s budget statement and in the Scottish National Party’s election manifesto. The cabinet secretary will also be aware of the important work that was undertaken by his predecessor, Fiona Hyslop, as the previous local constituency MSP, and by Jim Fairlie, in his ministerial role, in convening partners through a steering group. Will he commit to building on that work and to continuing to provide the leadership that is needed to bring partners together to ensure that this long-awaited station is delivered?

I refer members to my entry in the members’ register of interests: I am an elected member on West Lothian Council.

Given the acute demand for affordable housing in West Lothian, in particular, when can local authorities expect to see tangible developments resulting from that work?

I congratulate the cabinet secretary on her role. She recently visited Blawhorn Moss national nature reserve in my Bathgate constituency to mark world peatlands day and celebrate Scotland exceeding its annual peatland restoration target. Will the cabinet secretary, having seen at first hand the innovative restoration work at Blawhorn Moss, outline the contribution that peatland restoration is expected to make towards reducing Scotland’s greenhouse gas emissions? What further support will the Scottish Government provide to expand that work?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I congratulate you on your new role. I declare an interest as an elected member of West Lothian Council.

I am delighted to make my first speech in this chamber representing the new constituency seat of Bathgate, which is the area that I grew up in and the area where I am now raising my family. I am deeply grateful to the voters of the constituency for placing their trust in me to represent them. I will work every day to support them and give them a voice in our Parliament.

The Bathgate constituency sits right at the heart of Scotland’s energy and industrial story, so I am really pleased that my first contribution is to a debate on Scotland’s energy. Before I turn to the motion, I will pay tribute to my predecessor, Fiona Hyslop. If any other new members are concerned about the size of the boots that they have to fill, I ask them to please spare a thought for me. As one of the Parliament’s longest-serving MSPs, Fiona spent more than 16 years in government, and her work has made a huge difference to the lives of people across Scotland. I thank her for her work and wish her all the best for her future.

Nothing demonstrates the need for Scotland to have control of its own resources and decision making better than the issue that we are debating today. My election campaign began with a focus on Scotland’s energy and, with almost a third of households in Scotland living in fuel poverty, the issue clearly resonated with almost everybody we spoke to on the doorsteps. We had assumed that, as we headed into spring with warmer weather, people’s focus would turn to other issues, but that did not happen. As the UK found itself buffeted by events in the middle east, with soaring oil and gas prices for a second time and the UK Government being unable or unwilling to meet the scale of the challenges that people are facing, energy security came even more sharply into focus.

Further, just last week, we saw the UK Government panicking over its failure to manage energy infrastructure and watering down its sanctions on Russian oil. That was a betrayal of the Ukrainians who are fighting so hard for their democracy. The closure of the Grangemouth refinery, where many of my constituents worked, has clearly contributed to the situation. In addition, where are the benefits of the much hyped GB Energy? A year since its creation, there are just 30 permanent jobs to show for it. That does not meet the scale that is required.

There is a disconnect between what people hear from the UK Government and the energy that they see being created all around them. The lack of tangible improvement that that makes to people’s lives is so damaging to our democracy. It pushes people to the conclusion that it may not be worth voting at all, and it leaves space for the narrative that we can put dealing with the climate crisis on the back burner until another day. We cannot do that. Scotland’s energy needs to be in Scotland’s hands, with all energy powers being devolved to the Scottish Parliament.

Just as we have seen the closure of Scotland’s last commercial oil refinery at Grangemouth, the world’s first was pioneered in Bathgate by James “Paraffin” Young in 1850. Communities across my constituency—in Whitburn, Blackburn, Winchburgh, Broxburn, Uphall, Blackridge and Armadale—all bear the physical legacy of that era of decades of coal and shale mining. The striking red shale bings—the red giants that rise across the area—remain enduring symbols of the skill and labour of generations of workers that powered Scotland.

My constituency has also known the pain of deindustrialisation, with the loss of jobs, opportunities and confidence that affected so many families across Scotland. The Proclaimers captured that sense of loss in their song “Letter from America” with the famous lyric “Bathgate no more”. However, while that reflects one chapter of our history, it must not define our future. Today, our task here, and my task, is to make sure that it is “Bathgate once more”. With control of our vast renewable resources, we can be at the leading edge of the next energy revolution.

We must not leave this in the hands of Westminster, which has squandered Scotland’s energy wealth to date, and we must not risk repeating the mistakes of the 1980s, when towns that had their industry closed down were left to bear the social and economic costs alone. Instead, the move to clean energy must deliver secure, skilled and well-paid jobs here in Scotland, with investment rooted in communities such as Bathgate, Whitburn and Armadale. That means not only generating renewable energy but giving communities a real ownership stake and building the infrastructure of the future here at home.

We already see what that future can look like through initiatives such as the ECOHOUSE at West Lothian College—a green skills centre that is the first of its kind in Scotland—and companies such as Invinity Energy Systems in Bathgate, which is developing grid-scale battery technology. That is already happening. Young people in our communities should be able to look at our net zero transition and see not uncertainty but opportunity, good jobs, apprenticeships and a future that they can build here, in Scotland.

Today, many members will have travelled to the Parliament through the Bathgate constituency by rail or by the two motorways that dissect us. As members pass the shale bings, please consider what those red giants represent: generations of skilled and resilient people who worked hard to see Scotland prosper and grow. This cannot be the best that their legacy bears.

With Scotland’s energy in Scotland’s hands, we can build an energy system for our future. Communities in Bathgate and across Scotland will not only share in that future but help to lead it, just as they helped to power Scotland’s past.