Chamber and committees

Thank you.

I thank the cabinet secretary for that assurance. We must ensure that the delivery of that assurance follows the delivery of the bill.

I thank Gillian Martin for her incredibly comprehensive contribution, which detailed some of the residual questions. She is absolutely right in saying that some women might not yet have declared that they would like to have mesh removed and that others might not yet be aware of the bill. As Martin Whitfield and others said, we have to be careful when setting the cut-off date for applications for procedures in the future.

I thank all the other contributors to the bill, including David Torrance, the veteran of the long exchange in the committee; Katy Clark; Gillian Mackay; Craig Hoy; Kaukab Stewart; and Siobhian Brown, who brought us Isobel’s experience, which was, unfortunately, an all-too-typical example of what many of the women have endured.

I thank Rona Mackay; our former colleagues Alex Neil, Neil Findlay, Angus MacDonald, David Stewart and Johann Lamont; and the Presiding Officer, who was in the chair earlier. They have all done terrific work in promoting the issue over the past three parliamentary sessions.

I thank Elaine Holmes, Olive McIlroy, Lorna Farrell, Claire Daisley, Karen Neil, Nancy Honeyball, Gillian Watt and Isobel McLafferty. I have been proud to stand with all those women, who have affection and love for one another. I have attended their Christmas dinners, at which they have provided mutual support to ensure that their morale and their efforts have been sustained.

However, let us not forgot Michele McDougall, who died of cancer and could not get chemotherapy because of the consequences of six previous hernia mesh operations, or Eileen Baxter, who was the first woman to have mesh as the cause of death on her death certificate.

This is not just something that women are currently enduring; it has led to the deaths of some women. It has opened up questions about how women are believed in the health system. It has led to many women—who, at the start, did not believe that there was hope for them—fighting for years through their pain to prevent this from happening to other women. The bill offers them the justice that they deserve.

I absolutely do. In the previous session, I sat in a meeting of the Public Petitions Committee—along with David Torrance, I think—and listened to one specialist saying that only a couple of women were involved, with 60 women sitting behind him while he said it. There really has been a fundamental disconnect.

Mention has been made of Elaine Holmes, who lodged the petition in the first instance. She said:

“I’d been discharged from NHS GG&C after two mesh removal attempts, told I was mesh free and that I’d likely lose my leg if I had any more surgery relating to the transobturator mesh implant. I’d had every test/scan possible and had exhausted all options. After much research and pleading from my family, I contacted Dr V as he was my last hope. Thank God I did! He removed 22cm of the offending mesh.”

That was after she had been told that all her mesh had been removed, and that is why so many of the women have confidence in Dr Veronikis.

Dr Veronikis contacted me ahead of the debate. I do not want to introduce any note of difficulty, but here is what he says in the conclusion of a letter that he sent today to the interim medical director of NHS Scotland procurement commissioning and facilities:

“Respectfully, I see no progress, I only see delays and detours. As stated in my email on October 28, I do not believe that we have made any progress since March 2019, when Terry O’Kelly first contacted me, or since First Minister Nicola Sturgeon personally called me. The solution is either expedite and facilitate the care of the suffering women who wish my services or just tell them that NHS Scotland cannot help them receive care outside of Scotland.”

He goes on to say that he is desperate because of what appears to be a slightly dead hand of bureaucracy that is encountered when trying to drill down to the details. He says that we need to overcome that, and it probably needs the cabinet secretary to take a personal interest in what is being done, possibly in his name, to ensure that we get to the point at which Dr Dionysios Veronikis believes that he has a contract that is fair and operable and that allows these women to go to Missouri to have the treatment concerned.

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

I genuinely feel considerable pride in our Parliament this afternoon. In contributing to the debate, I am not without some emotion. Over three sessions of Parliament, for eight long years, we have tried to move the issue forward and bring justice to the women who have survived the mesh scandal. Had it been—as I observed in an earlier debate—similar to the thalidomide scandal, in which the injuries and injustice suffered were all too visible, it might have been easier to get the issue thoroughly discussed. However, in the early days of this Parliament, when the issue first arose, I have to say that there was a squeamishness and a reticence to talk about what was, for many women, the most sensitive of issues. It was the heroism of those women that made the difference. Mention has been also made of the determination of Alex Neil, Neil Findlay and myself to speak in the bluntest and most graphic way possible about the issue in order to break through that reticence and make people understand the importance of Parliament facing up to the issue.

Shakespeare sent Mark Antony to bury Caesar, not to praise him. I, of course, would never suggest that I would ever talk about burying the cabinet secretary—I mean, he can scooter himself to disaster all on his own, as we know—but I am here to praise him quite unequivocally this afternoon not only for fulfilling the commitment of his predecessor, Jeane Freeman, in bringing this bill to Parliament after five health secretaries have wrestled with the issue, but also because of the way in which he addressed the issues in his opening speech this afternoon, the flexibility that he has shown, the willingness that he has had to meet the women concerned and others who have pointed out concerns that they might have with the bill and his determination to see all of those issues addressed at stage 2. I take all of that at face value and look forward to helping in any way that I can to facilitate the progress of the bill.

The bill does not represent the end of the mesh argument. As people have pointed out, Professor Alison Britton is undertaking a full mesh case review, the recommendations of the Baroness Cumberlege review still require to be implemented in full and, at the moment, the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee is considering a fresh petition on the wider application of mesh—although, as the minister has identified, we should not draw an immediate parallel between the use of mesh in other procedures and the particular issues that arose as a result of the transvaginal mesh scandal. The issue has led to the expression of fundamental concern about what women in Scotland were being told.

Mention has been made of Neil Findlay, and he has been texting me during the debate. I ironically asked him whether that constituted lobbying—a comment that I hope will not be lost on other colleagues.

The cabinet secretary made reference to the Glasgow centre, which has performed perhaps two dozen or three dozen mesh removals. The affected women and those of us who have been involved with the issue have raised a concern about the exact nature of the training of those who were involved in those procedures. Where were they trained? In what removal techniques have people in the Glasgow centre been trained? By whom were they subsequently accredited as being competent in those practices?

As per the allowances notice that was issued to all members on 10 November, members’ annual reports cannot be issued in the period between 5 February 2022 and the local authority election on 5 May 2022 inclusive, in line with the SPCB’s long-standing policy on members’ publications.

The corporate body has taken that long-standing position to ensure the neutrality of any election without any undue or perceived influence—intentional or unintentional—coming through the issuing of members’ parliamentary funded publications. Advance notice has been provided to enable members to plan the issuing of their publications over the next three months prior to the deadline. Annual reports and other parliamentary funded publications can be issued as normal following the election.

That is an interesting suggestion and it is one that I shall take back and discuss with my colleagues on the corporate body.

All my antennae have been trained to suppose that that is a trick question, because I think that Ms Baillie knows the answer to her question even better than I do.

The SPCB will submit its 2022-23 budget for consideration at the Finance and Public Administration Committee meeting on 21 December. It will include the proposed uprating of the staff cost provision for 2022-23.

The corporate body has a partnership arrangement with the Scottish parliamentary service’s three recognised trade unions—the Public and Commercial Services Union, Prospect and the FDA. Parliament officials regularly meet those unions on a range of employment matters. The last formal partnership board meeting took place in October this year.

The SPCB has had no recent meetings with trade unions representing MSP staff.

I understand that various party groupings have arrangements with trade unions, but the SPCB has no locus to do so in relation to MSPs’ staff. The SPCB is responsible for funding of the reimbursement of members’ expenses scheme, including the staff cost provision, and for determining which indices are used to uprate the overall provisions of the scheme.

In 2020, the SPCB reviewed the indices used for the uprating of the scheme and, in so doing, was made aware of representations from trade unions representing MSPs’ staff. The SPCB agreed to use a basket of indices for uprating the SCP on the basis that it would provide a more steady basis for future increases.

We do that on the basis that individual MSPs remain responsible, as employers of their staff, for setting and managing their staff’s pay and cost of living increases, within the provisions of the expenses scheme. That is not within the locus of the SPCB, as we are not the employer of MSPs’ staff; MSPs themselves are.

The corporate body is committed to supporting members of the reserve forces or those wishing to join the reserve forces. Staff who are armed forces reservists are entitled to take five days paid special leave each year to attend training. MSPs, as the employers of their staff, also have discretion to grant the same entitlement to their staff.

Reservists who are mobilised for acts of service are protected in law from detriment, such as the termination of their employment, because they have been called up to acts of service.