Chamber and committees

Scotland is years behind where we should be on climate but, instead of accelerating action, when the SNP ended the Bute house agreement, it decided to slow that action down. Its draft plan today contains no change.

The Government has rejected the Climate Change Committee’s clear advice on agriculture. It has scrapped the road traffic reduction targets and replaced them with nothing. It has given no clarity at all on new fossil fuel extraction. It has filleted the heat in buildings bill and now proposes a target with no delivery mechanism. That has been tried and has failed many times before, on many different issues. How on earth can the cabinet secretary think that slowing down action will let the country catch up on lost ground?

In closing for my party, I begin where I started with my opening speech and recognise the tone that many members have struck in taking part in this debate. Jackie Baillie might forgive me if I say that, on another day and on another topic, she is capable of party political point scoring as much as anybody is, but she clearly recognised that that was not the way to take forward today’s debate. A number of members have taken that approach. In fact, both Jackie Baillie and Neil Gray recognised the profound human impact on families who have been failed and our shared responsibility to them.

As well as reflecting on issues in the inspection reports, the BBC documentary and their own case loads, members across the chamber have spoken up on behalf of people they have met, as well as reflecting on their personal experience and offering views on the overall provision of service in different parts of the country.

It is important and legitimate to reflect the fact that members can disagree in good faith on some of the delivery questions about the nature and design of services, and that they have a responsibility to speak up for their constituents, but a debate such as this one should not be about assigning blame. It should be about seeking to restore trust with those families and NHS staff who feel that they have been failed.

A number of members spoke with professional expertise, as well as with deep compassion and personal experience. There are too many to mention, but I pick out Clare Haughey’s speech, which brought together those different elements. It is significant that we have someone chairing the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee who is able to do that.

That kind of content and contribution should have characterised the whole debate. Those listening will have heard serious, thoughtful and informed debate, but they will also have heard a fair amount of political accusation and counter-accusation. I do not imagine that that is what they wanted to hear when they started listening.

Staff, patients, inspection reports and documentaries have all brought to us the severe challenges that are felt throughout the system, as well as the many cases in which there have been unacceptable failings and the human impact on people in those situations. Our job—that of the Parliament and the Government—is to decide what to do about it.

I have heard a very clear demand from across the chamber for a national investigation. I have not heard any reason to reject that on principle. I see a case for allowing clinical expertise to shape that national investigation and to define its scope and timing. I am willing to allow the Government to go through that process if it can give us an assurance. The minister will be chairing the task force, so it is not simply a question of waiting for the task force to form a view. She will have a view in shaping the approach of the task force in the way that she leads it.

I would like to hear from the minister in her closing speech a clear sense from the Government that it intends to use its leadership of the task force to ensure that the question of a national investigation, which is sought by members across the chamber, involves what the investigation will be and how it will be carried out, and not whether it will take place. I did not hear that confirmation in the opening speeches; I hope to hear it in the minister’s closing speech.

Presiding Officer, I will return the remainder of my time to you.

It sounds as though Stephen Kerr thinks that I have just argued against a national investigation. I have argued very clearly in favour of one and I want the Government to say that it is in favour of one as well. That is the commitment that I want to hear, and I will hold the Government to account as much as anybody else in the chamber if it makes that commitment.

I spoke briefly about the Lothian situation, but I have now moved on to discussing the call for a national investigation.

What I need to hear from the Scottish Government—and what it needs to be clear about when it asks the chamber to vote for its amendment—is its intention in framing a national investigation. Yes, there is a legitimate question about its scope—whether it covers maternity services as well as neonatal services or whether it focuses on maternity services—but there are also questions about how the clinical advice that is being sought by Government informs the decision about how a national investigation would take place. Fundamentally, that is what I want to hear about from the Government, including from the minister, who will chair the task force. In chairing that task force and taking forward that discussion, will her role be to define how that national investigation takes place, or will she be asking whether it should take place?

I need to hear, in the Government’s closing speech, a very clear steer that it will be asking how the national investigation will take place, not whether it will take place.

It would feel inappropriate if the Parliament as a whole was not willing to take yes for an answer.

I will make some progress. The motion was presented in a way that reflected that the issue goes beyond party politics and that it should do.

What we have seen and been informed about over the recent period goes beyond what was in just one documentary. Some of the issues that we have heard about in recent weeks go back years. A whistleblower investigation in 2024, which informed the recent BBC documentary, talked about mothers and newborn babies coming to harm because of staff shortages and a toxic culture at Edinburgh’s maternity unit. The whistleblowing report found that patient safety was being compromised by a series of factors, including staff shortages, which led to delays. It said:

“There is no dispute that there have been safety concerns, near misses and actual adverse outcomes for women and babies.”

It talked about a toxic working environment as well.

Before then, a survey of RCM members across Scotland had exposed the scale of the challenges that professionals face every day. There are too few staff, a poor skills mix, inadequate equipment, substandard environments and no time to learn and develop. In 2023, the RCM’s “state of maternity services” report detailed how rising intervention rates, increasing complexity and growing policy and regulatory demands required a larger, more skilled workforce.

Many of these issues go back a significant time and are not news to those who have been working in the system for a long time, but the recent inspection reports have highlighted continued issues with staff shortages, inconsistent training and inequality between regions. All of that leads us to the question that is posed by the Labour motion: does the situation require a national investigation in addition to the steps that were announced last week?

I welcome the steps that were announced by the cabinet secretary last week in relation to the Scottish maternity and neonatal task force. We should recognise the importance of the clinical advice and expertise that will be brought into that, as well as the escalation of the support and intervention framework in NHS Lothian. Those must be seen as first steps.

The question is whether a national investigation needs to proceed alongside that task force, be part of its work or be framed by it. I was interested in the point that Stephen Kerr made when he talked about the emphasis of an investigation into culture. Both investigations would be legitimate, but that is different from an

“investigation into the design and delivery of maternity and neonatal services”,

which is suggested in the Labour motion. Different but equally valid issues are being raised.

The cabinet secretary said—I think that I am quoting him correctly—that he would be “more than happy” for a national investigation to take place if its scope and nature were determined and informed by experts.

Every member who has spoken so far has talked about the profound impact on individuals and families who have been failed by the system, and I think that we can all recognise the seriousness of that. I acknowledge Willie Rennie’s comments at the start of his speech about the recognition that we owe to the incredibly dedicated and hard-working staff, who are doing their best. We must also provide reassurance, which Willie Rennie also spoke about, that, in the large majority of cases, services are safe and are being provided to a standard that people can have confidence in. We all have a responsibility not to exacerbate fears but to respond legitimately to failings when they have happened.

Because these issues are so profound, they go beyond party politics. I welcome Jackie Baillie’s motion and the tone with which she presented it. She did not give in to the temptation to make repeated comments about “this SNP Government” or such a thing as “SNP workforce planning”—I am not sure what that even means.

One group of my constituents who are undoubtedly seeing a worse performance from the NHS than 10 years ago are those who are seeking gender healthcare from Sandyford, which serves not only NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde but seven other health board areas. Public Health Scotland data that was published last week shows that some 4,000 people are on the waiting list, with fewer than 50 first appointments a year. Can the cabinet secretary give my constituents any reassurance that some dramatic change is on its way, to ensure that that woeful performance turns around?

I think that I have time for one intervention.

Once again, I pay tribute to Labour for lodging its motion and making the argument for a national investigation. However, in the minister’s closing speech, we have heard a clear statement that this is now only a matter of framing the investigation and of how it will be taken forward, not whether it will be taken forward. [Interruption.]