Chamber and committees

I thought that you were going to say that time was up, Presiding Officer.

When Ivan McKee has time to get off his high horse, will he focus on the aspect that I asked about, which is the opportunity for Scotch whisky? Australia was our eighth-biggest market last year, worth £113 million to the Scotch whisky industry. Since the announcement of the agreement, what specific conversations has Ivan McKee had with the Scotch whisky industry about how the Scottish Government can work with it to ensure that we maximise the opportunity? Assuming that he has not bothered to do that, will he commit to doing so in the weeks ahead?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the announcement that the United Kingdom-Australia free trade agreement will remove tariffs of up to 5 per cent on Scotch whisky. (S6O-00056)

One welcome success of the pandemic has been the support offered to the First Minister by signers. On behalf of the deaf community of my constituency, I thank the signers for the outstanding and sustained job that they have done. However, that belies a much more complicated pathway for the deaf community to public services and particularly to general practitioner services.

Initially, many members of the deaf community received letters saying that they should make telephone appointments—I assume that was inadvertent. Subsequently, online appointments have often taken place without a signer. When a signer is provided, they can join the consultation from anywhere in the UK. Sign language, just as any other language, has nuances and many in the deaf community are concerned that very delicate matters relating to their health are not being properly translated. They are looking to have the right to direct face-to-face contact with GP services once again. They look to the First Minister to champion that, so that they can enjoy that right at the earliest opportunity.

Many people have put off seeking a GP consultation for far too long. Will the First Minister intervene to allow such consultations to take place?

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the research led by Newcastle University and published in The Lancet into outcomes arising from minimum unit pricing. (S6O-00024)

I can confirm to the minister that they are welcome. Obviously, they vindicate the decision of those of us who supported the policy from its inception. However, there is one caveat in the research that is a cause for concern, which has been reported in The Scotsman and elsewhere. The exception to the reduction of sales is that those in high-purchasing, low-income homes do not seem to have changed their habits. Professor Eileen Kaner from Newcastle University, who is one of the study’s authors and is also a director of applied research collaboration, said:

“it is a concern ... that ... households did not adjust their buying habits, and spending simply increased as a result of the MUP policy.”

It was always a concern that low-income households would simply increase their spend on alcohol from fixed incomes at the expense of other things and that there would be considerable consequential long-term harms. What is the Scottish Government’s response to that? Can anything more be done? Does the Government intend to review the level of minimum unit pricing in the near future?

I welcome you to your position, Deputy Presiding Officer, and I congratulate Audrey Nicoll on her debut speech. I look forward to hearing more from her as this session of the Parliament progresses.

There is, of course, an enormous challenge to deal with in relation to Covid recovery—the consequences of the pandemic and its on-going complications. We know that there is a backlog in cancer and mental health care, and I hope to work with the cabinet secretary in as non-belligerent a way as possible to resolve the issues. We all understood that, in postponing much care, we were compounding a problem, but we must also recognise that there was a problem to compound. The challenge and the task ahead are huge.

When I welcomed the cabinet secretary to his position, I referred to the proposed developments on mesh, following the First Minister’s meeting with mesh survivors in November 2019, because those developments, too, were partially—and understandably—postponed. The questions that I will ask him are slightly peripheral to today’s debate, so I hope that he will contact me after the debate to update me. He is the fifth health secretary, in the third consecutive session of the Parliament, to have to contemplate tackling the consequences of the worldwide mesh scandal—a wholly self-inflicted health crisis in countries everywhere. In Scotland, the scandal was highlighted by the heroic efforts of some heroic women who enabled Scotland to become almost a beacon for people across the world who have been trying to advance the response to the mesh issue.

Let us remember that the mesh scandal cost lives—the first death was that of Eileen Baxter—and ruined lives. It is, therefore, fundamentally important that we finally resolve the issue in this session of Parliament.

First, I ask the cabinet secretary about the case record review that his predecessor announced on 10 February. Before the previous session ended, I asked at First Minister’s question time whether the review’s terms would be amended as Professor Alison Britton had requested. I understand that the terms have now been agreed. I also asked whether Dr Wael Agur, who has the great confidence of many of the mesh women, would be included in the process, as I hoped that he would be. I am delighted to say that Dr Agur has contacted me to say that the Scottish Government has invited him to work with Professor Britton. Both developments are welcome, and I would be interested to know the timetable for the review, which is under way.

Secondly, the cabinet secretary’s predecessor, Jeane Freeman, announced on 24 March—to the absolute delight of mesh survivors—that a bill would be introduced

“as a priority early in the next session”,

to provide for retrospective payment and restitution to the women who travelled outwith the United Kingdom—principally to see Dr Veronikis in the United States—for the costs associated with their operations. I would very much welcome the cabinet secretary saying when—early in this session—he intends to introduce the bill, because those women have waited and suffered long enough and are looking forward to the issue being dealt with as quickly as possible.

Thirdly, will the cabinet secretary update us on the status of the proposed consultation on a patient safety commissioner?

Finally, we now know that mesh extends way beyond being a calamity for women. Women were organised and were able to bring the issue to the fore, but 10,000 hernia mesh operations, using exactly the same materials, take place in Scotland every year, affecting men, women and children. Some have died and some have suffered the same horrendous consequences. Does the cabinet secretary intend to ensure that there is a much wider review now of the use and application of mesh within the health service, in order that we can draw an end to the scandal of mesh and the damage that it is doing to thousands of our fellow Scots?

I have almost finished, Presiding Officer.

After 14 years, there can be no more honeymoon. We are entitled to expect focus, action and delivery. We will work with ministers where and when we can and oppose rigorously and robustly where we have to.

In the tradition that was established by my late friend and colleague David McLetchie, I will set aside the substantive political arguments that will engage us in the period ahead and welcome whole-heartedly, in my own way and on behalf of my party, the various new ministers to Parliament.

I start by adding my congratulations to Nicola Sturgeon. I hope that she will acknowledge that I was at least half right when I stood here three years ago and said to her that neither of us would be First Minister after the election. Half right is about as good as it gets these days.

On this day of the long sgian dubhs, I also thank the previous ministers—those who have retired, the one who might have been wheeled out, so to speak, and those who were euphemistically “let go”. I say to Fiona Hyslop and Fergus Ewing, think back to Michael Russell, Angela Constance, Richard Lochhead, Keith Brown and Shona Robison. They were all sacked and back before midnight, so Ms Hyslop and Mr Ewing could yet be the future once again—they should sit and brace themselves for the opportunity.

I congratulate Kate Forbes, Michael Matheson and SAS—Shirley-Anne Somerville. The motto of the Special Air Service is “Who dares wins” and I think that that will be required when it comes to getting a hold of the education brief. Turning to John Swinney, we welcome the appointment of a Cabinet Secretary for Covid Recovery. He is one of only three ex-leaders in Parliament from the old ex-leaders club. We lost five in the previous Parliament. I think that Mr Swinney was less happy in education than he was in the first SNP Government in dealing with the economy, when he reached out across parties to get agreement. I very much hope that if he applies himself in that way in focusing on the recovery from Covid, we as a Parliament can work with him to achieve that.

It is always a pleasure to follow the swerves in Humza Yousaf’s career. We privately educated public schoolboys need to stick together, as Anas Sarwar and Jackie Baillie will acknowledge. It is quite ironic to me that the only party in Holyrood to have a leader and deputy leader who were privately educated is the Scottish Labour Party—that is quite something. Mr Yousaf has hidden skills that I am now able to reveal. When we had our heroes in the Parliament, Mr Yousaf was a bit aghast when my hero greeted him and said, “Humza, it is great to see you. You used to come round to my house and I taught you how to crochet.” I did not know that he had crochet skills. He looked at me and thought, “Oh God—that’s going to get revealed at some point.” Whatever he was crocheting in justice was full of holes, but he does like to dress up. As transport secretary, there he was in the tunnels with Network Rail in a high-visibility vest, then he was on the train in a guard’s uniform waving a red flag, then he was out with the police on the beat in a high-visibility vest. Does anybody believe that by the end of next week Mr Yousaf will not be photographed in scrubs wielding a scalpel over some poor unsuspecting patient in the national health service? However, I look forward to working with him, particularly on fulfilling the commitment that was made by Jeane Freeman at the end of the previous parliamentary session to a bill on restitution for women affected by mesh.

Angus Robertson arrives here, too. He is hitherto known to us only as a mercifully briefer, non-simple-millionaire-crofter version of Ian Blackford, but we look forward to him. When he has been here in the past, I have noticed that, in honour of his heritage, he has a penchant for wearing alpine mountain jackets. I have been told by some of his colleagues that, at the royal opening of Parliament, there is the real prospect of him polishing some lederhosen and appearing suitably attired, and for Her Majesty’s sake and amusement, I hope that that is true.

I look forward to Mairi Gougeon’swork and I think that hers must be one of the most popular appointments, because I have always found her very easy to work with. Unfortunately for me, when we were in Dublin once, I was filling my face with chocolate muffins and coffee as she came back from a 20-mile run around the city, which rather showed the difference between us, but I welcome her to her appointment and wish her well.

We welcome Shona Robison back. She has obviously done work on social justice and I look forward to her work in that portfolio.

Keith Brown is also back. He has a marvellous ability to make things up and repeat them, with a poker face, on television, which is an odd talent in the justice brief. However, members might not know that Mr Brown makes a spectacular appearance on page 182 of Sasha Swire’s racy and salacious “Diary of an MP’s Wife”. I leave it to colleagues to look it up for themselves and establish whether it is a climactic or mundane insertion. I also welcome the fact that he has been appointed as veterans minister.

I congratulate George Adam and Stacey, the enforcer, on their appointments to the business management roles.

I also offer a word of congratulation to Tom Arthur. He alone among the back benchers did not put himself forward to be a deputy presiding officer last week and, for that simple fact, a ministerial reward should be welcomed and appreciated by so many of us who endured for so long last Friday afternoon. Therefore, his appointment is well deserved.

Finally, I turn to Màiri McAllan—her appointment is quite something and I congratulate her on it. She must realise that she has single-handedly destroyed the ambitions of everybody who was here before her, because they will now believe that they have been passed over. I assure them that the best thing to do now is to rebel and become totally notorious, and we will support them in that endeavour.

The debates are serious and we look forward to engaging in them, but we support the proposals today.