Chamber and committees

Pam Duncan-Glancy quoted young people welcoming the change of policy on phones in classrooms, and she talked about having a sensible boundary during lessons. I welcome that, and I will support the motion, but it is disappointing that Labour does not support the Government amendment, which also seems sensible and balanced to me. It seems that Labour wants to present the idea of a simple blanket and uniform rule while still acknowledging the need for exceptions and individual reasons and acknowledging different circumstances. I agree that we need to recognise the autonomy of schools.

That being said, I support the motion and the Government’s amendment. The cabinet secretary said that Labour’s motion is missing something, but I think that both the motion and the amendment are missing something, because the debate is not just about distraction in class but about young people’s ability to learn to navigate an increasingly fraught, hostile and disturbing information landscape. Many aspects of today’s permanently online life do not stop when the school day ends—far from it. Young people face multiple issues, including bullying, targeted abuse against minorities, marketing, conspiracy theories and racist and far-right content—all beaming at them 24 hours a day through these devices. It is not accidental. It is built into the business models of social media platforms and others.

I cite the death of 23-year-old Paloma Shemirani. Paloma’s mother had been radicalised against science-based healthcare by that type of content, and that influence led Paloma to refuse chemotherapy that could have saved her life. Her story has become a tragic example of the way that social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and X have become sources of health information and disinformation, with millions of people—increasingly, young people—relying on them for advice and being misled.

Health conspiracies on other issues, such as anti-vaccine conspiracies and the promotion of fake treatments, also circulate. Recently, days after Donald Trump promoted dangerous rubbish about paracetamol and autism, a member of this Parliament echoed that baseless idea. Scotland is by no means immune.

Prejudice, racism, anti-migrant propaganda, homophobia and transphobia have been growing in intensity to the point that, even at the highest level of politics in the United Kingdom, there are politicians who openly debate whether black or brown people can ever be British, English or Scottish—ideas that, not so long ago, would have been the preserve of the British National Party. Much of that activity is promoted and even directly paid for by social media platforms—X, YouTube and others are paying people huge sums of money to produce it and then aggressively pushing it out to audiences, especially young people. That torrent of far-right and conspiracist propaganda is the information landscape that young people are growing up in. If phones are switched back on as soon as young people leave the classroom, they are still vulnerable.

I will back the motion and the Government amendment at decision time. The policy stance on phones in classrooms is fine as far as it goes, but I am not sure that the debate about whether it should be a blanket decision by a cabinet secretary or up to the autonomy of individual schools and headteachers is really where the issue is at. We must not allow that action to result in complacency about the wider issue—the world of abusive, bigoted, conspiracist and untrue content that we have all created and the impact that it is having on everyone, including the young people who are growing up on it.

A policy of no phones in classrooms is fine, but it will not end the need to take a far more robust approach to regulating social media and tackling the far-right and toxic culture warriors.

Thank you very much and good morning to the witnesses. I am already learning a lot, so thank you very much for the evidence that you have been giving.

The issue of private diagnosis has come up a couple of times in the conversation already, and I wanted to ask some specific questions about that. We have heard the reasons why diagnosis is so important. We have heard the fact that private diagnosis may be quicker and easier to achieve if someone has the money. I am not quite clear whether that is entirely because of capacity in the private sector or whether it is because of different practices in the private sector.

We have heard about the unfairness and the amount of money that getting a private diagnosis costs. Mark McDonald mentioned people moving into significant debt because of that. He also used the phrase “wild west” with regard to the variation in standards, what private diagnosis consists of and whether it is recognised in other services. In the written evidence, we also see a big variation in what it costs and in the prices involved. Again, I am not clear on the reasons for that.

Can I ask you to either comment about the current situation or, ideally, say what the role of private diagnosis should be? Who would like to kick off?

I get the point, and I share that concern. However, I am also aware of other evidence that we have heard, especially in our earlier session, that many people who do not have access to the NHS find themselves being forced to go private and so going into debt. It seems to me that an approach that would involve contracting externally to the NHS, would not involve fees for individuals and families, and had an agreed standard of delivery so that its diagnoses would be recognised would feel better than what we have now.

Thank you all very much. That is really helpful.

Can I ask you to say a little more about the variation within private provision? You have talked about quality, but there is also the price variation. How does that compare with the cost to the NHS of NHS diagnosis? We can acknowledge that somebody else is paying for it—the taxpayer is paying in one case and the individual is paying in the other—but does the cost of providing the service compare between the private sector and the NHS?

Thank you. Do any of the other witnesses want to talk about any aspects of this general theme of private provision?

Dani Cosgrove, do you want to come in?

May I check? Do you mean that some of the private providers are doing NHS work and private work?

The follow-up questions that I had about the variation in standards were mostly addressed, and there were also some comments about the desire for some clarity and consistency around shared care agreements.

My last question on this theme is this: if—and it is a big if—we need to use capacity outside the NHS to bridge the gap between the capacity and the demand that is there at the moment, is there a case for saying that that external capacity should be located in the third sector and that there should be an agreement between NHS providers and voluntary not-for-profit organisations that could operate to an agreed standard for an agreed price? That would be private in the sense that it is not the NHS, but it would not be paid for by individuals. Would that increase the capacity across the sector to meet demand more affordably and inclusively?

Good morning. My question is on aspects that are quite close to what you have just covered in your answers.

I go back to Matthew Day’s comment, right at the start of our discussion, about his organisation’s experience. Matthew, forgive me if I picked it up wrongly, but it sounded as though you said that you were being used to clear the backlog but were then dropped because the funding had ended, and that there was some frustration around that. However, at the same time, I hear from witnesses that voluntary sector, third sector or community-based organisations can be really effective at joining the dots across the various forms of support that people need—and do so in a much more inclusive way that we might wish the NHS would deliver, but which is not happening.

During the rest of the committee’s inquiry, and when we put questions to other witnesses, should we ask whether the voluntary sector should be given not just a temporary role to clear the backlog but an on-going, long-term role to deliver assessments and diagnoses in concert with other forms of support? Should we explore whether the voluntary sector could be effective not only in clearing the backlog but also in the long term? Should we consider whether it could meet people’s needs not only in relation to assessment and diagnostic issues but more widely and holistically, and whether that approach could be cost effective when compared with scaling up capacity in the NHS?