Chamber and committees

Work is under way to develop that mechanism. If we were to take that step, there is the likelihood that secondary legislation would be required to enable the mechanism to be put in place. The Government is actively considering those issues. For completeness, I should also say that the under-22 bus travel initiative has been enormously successful. It has attracted a huge amount of participation and it has increased the mobility of young people. The overwhelming majority of young people exercise their participation in the under-22s scheme wisely, thoughtfully and effectively. We have to be prepared to tackle unacceptable behaviour, but we also have to applaud young people for the positive contribution that they make to our society.

I come back to one of the points that I made to Mr Sarwar in my earlier response, which is that not all of those young people require a diagnosis to make progress in addressing the circumstances that they face. Therefore, we must have available a range of community-based interventions, supported by some of the financial assistance that I have set out, to ensure that the needs of those young people are met at the earliest possible opportunity.

As a consequence of that, the Government is working to ensure that we have those mechanisms available in all localities so that young people can access those services. That is what the funding that I set out in my response to Mr Mountain is designed to achieve.

Mr Findlay talks about honesty. In November of last year, Mr Findlay voted for carbon reduction targets in this Parliament, but when his United Kingdom Government leader questioned their merits—not just questioned but actually suggested that those targets be dumped—Mr Findlay called that refreshingly honest. I call it barefaced dishonesty in front of the people of this country to vote for climate change targets one minute—[Interruption.]

Obviously, the details of the programme for government will be set out next Tuesday, but we have already given a commitment to the introduction of the heat in buildings legislation, which will be introduced in this parliamentary session to support us in our efforts.

We have also committed to investing, in this current budget year, £300 million in the heat in buildings programmes, which will increase energy efficiency and provide financial support to do exactly what Lorna Slater has put to me. That comes alongside more than £1.63 billion of funding through our heat in buildings schemes in this parliamentary session so far.

I simply say to Lorna Slater that I understand—and share—her passion and determination to make progress on the climate agenda, and that it is at the heart of the Government’s priorities. However, we must also recognise the formidable financial commitments that have been made to decarbonise heating systems in the homes of our constituents and ensure that, through that mechanism, we contribute to reducing their effect on the climate. That will be at the heart of the Government’s agenda as we move forward.

The United Kingdom Government has taken on fiscal targets that it inherited from the Conservatives and which are enormously damaging to a growth agenda, and it has compounded that error with the increase in employer national insurance contributions, which will be a further depressant on growth in the economy. The conflict and contradiction between the rhetoric on growth and the reality of decision making is becoming ever more apparent, because of the global economic challenges that we face.

The programme for government will set out additional measures that the Scottish Government will take to build resilience in the Scottish economy, to support our economy to have an international focus and outlook, and to make sure that we support and encourage innovation in the Scottish economy, which is the route to success for Scotland.

I am very happy to address the particular case that Mr Sarwar raises with me and to say—which he knows from my previous answers—that, in general, we are working to reduce waiting times for individuals to access treatment across the health service in Scotland, and we are making progress in a number of areas in relation to that objective. He will also know that the Government has delivered increased investment in mental health support to expand capacity to meet young people’s developing needs. I want to ensure that our investments are well targeted in order to address the issues that Mr Sarwar has raised. That is why we increased the funding for mental health support, and that is why we are putting in place assistance around the country.

That is not what we are doing. We are focusing on ensuring that support is in place in communities the length and breadth of the country.

It is often the case that CAMHS is simply not the correct service for children who are seeking a diagnosis for a neurodevelopmental condition such as autism or ADHD, unless they have a co-existing mental health condition. That is the key point that I need to get across to reassure parents, who will be anxious about the issues that Mr Sarwar raises. As he knows, we have made progress on the CAMHS waiting lists in the past year. The overall CAMHS waiting list decreased by 20.9 per cent in the previous year and that progress has continued in the latest quarter.

The Government will be focused on ensuring that the support that is necessary for individual young people is available to them, and that the right pathway is put in place to meet the needs of every young person in Scotland. That is the commitment that I give to Parliament today, and that is the foundation of the Government’s approach in that respect.

I will address Mr Macpherson’s point directly, because he makes substantial points about the record of the Labour Party.

Since we declared the housing emergency last May, we have prioritised working most urgently with five local authorities, including the City of Edinburgh Council, and we are accelerating and accentuating the interventions in Edinburgh to address the very significant issues that Mr Macpherson has put to me. We have also, as I said in my response to Mr Griffin, reshaped investment to ensure that we can support local authorities in tackling void accommodation, and we have increased support for adaptations in properties to enable people to be supported in their housing.

I appreciated the opportunity to discuss those issues with Mr Macpherson when we visited the former Granton gasworks site some weeks ago. The Government has invested £16 million to enable development of that site, which will lead, if my memory serves me right, to the creation of more than 800 affordable homes in the city of Edinburgh. That is the type of targeted action that the Scottish Government is taking to address the housing emergency, and it will be the underpinning of our housing programme in the years to come.

I join Audrey Nicoll in welcoming the report. The Government has a long-standing commitment to support supply chain developments in renewables—indeed, that was very much a focus of the investment conference to which I referred earlier. We are investing up to £500 million over five years to anchor our offshore wind supply chain in Scotland. We have also been successful in securing major investments such as Sumitomo at Nigg, the investments at Ardersier by Haventus and a number of other projects that are in active development to secure supply chain benefits for Scotland from the significant opportunity of renewable energy.

It is not a point with which I am familiar, but I will look at it on Mr Choudhury’s behalf, if he could supply me with more details about the specifics to enable me to do so.

Various mechanisms are available to individuals, not least the under-22s concessionary scheme—although I am not sure of the age of the constituent whose experience Mr Choudhury puts to me. If he would like to write to me, I will certainly consider those issues.