Chamber and committees

To ask the Scottish Government what recent assessment it has made of the number of people requiring home care but who remain on waiting lists for such care. (S6O-01027)

Last year, more than 500 people died while waiting for home care. More than 5,000 people are waiting to be assessed, 404 of whom are in South Lanarkshire. Age Scotland has described the figures as an “absolute tragedy”. It is a fact that the longer that people languish on those lists, the quicker they deteriorate. What urgent steps will the minister take now to get on top of this crisis?

I thank the cabinet secretary. I welcome his words and his advice to keep going. I stress that it is not my campaign; I am involved in it, but there are many others involved, as well.

Given that he has expressed support for the campaign, is the cabinet secretary prepared to write to the UK Government expressing the support of the Scottish Government?

I start by thanking all the members from across the chamber who signed the motion, thereby allowing the debate to take place. At the heart of it is something that I think that we can all agree with: those who serve us in the emergency services are heroes and deserve our thanks and recognition.

I want to set out the background to why I lodged the motion. In 2020, I was contacted by retired police officer George Barnsley of the Lanarkshire Police Historical Society. He asked me to look at two cases in which he believed officers had been overlooked for posthumous awards. If members will allow it, I will take a bit of time to go over the cases in chronological order.

The first involved Constable George Taylor. On 30 November 1976, Robert Mone and Thomas McCulloch escaped from Carstairs state hospital. During the escape, they murdered another inmate and a male nurse, and they fled wearing nurses’ uniforms. Shortly afterwards, Robert McAllan was driving his car in Carnwath when he saw a man lying in the road and another signalling to him to stop, which he did. He was asked if he would drive them away, but he refused because he saw a police van coming.

Both officers in the van were attacked with an axe and a knife. George Taylor was killed. Mone and McCulloch stole the police van, then other vehicles. Officers from Strathclyde Police chased them to Carlisle, where four Scottish police vehicles were joined by reinforcements from Cumbria Constabulary. Mone and McCulloch were forced onto a slip road while trying to move ahead of police who had overtaken them, and they crashed. Despite the crash and the police presence, they used their weapons to attempt to seize a car that had stopped at the crash, but they were eventually overpowered, restrained and arrested. They were convicted of the murders of the inmate, the prison nurse and Constable Taylor.

The second case happened on 5 June 1983 in Larkhall. Detective Sergeant William Ross Hunt was making enquiries into an attempted murder incident. DS Hunt and other officers attended the home address of the suspect at Earn Gardens in Larkhall. The suspect was not at home, so the officers walked back towards their vehicle. At that time, the suspect came back with other members of his family and approached the address. DS Hunt walked towards the group to explain the reason for their visit, but the group attacked him and stabbed him to death. He was 56 years of age and had more than 30 years of police service. Three family members—Hugh Murray Jnr, who was 16, Margaret Smith, 23, and Hugh Murray Snr, aged 51—were arrested and convicted of DS Hunt’s murder.

Detective Sergeant Hunt’s son, Phil, is with us today in the public gallery, as is George Barnsley. They are behind me.

Neither of the murdered officers has been formally recognised in the honours system, but they are not the only ones. Members will know of the case of Woman Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher, who was killed outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984. She has never been honoured. There are others.

The Queen’s gallantry medal was instituted in June 1974 to replace the?order of the British empire?for gallantry and the? British empire medal?for gallantry. The QGM ended the anomaly whereby the order of the British empire for gallantry was awarded for lesser acts of bravery than the?George medal?but took precedence over it. The QGM is awarded for “exemplary acts of bravery” by civilians and members of the armed forces where purely military honours are not normally granted. It has been awarded posthumously since 30 November 1977.

In December 2020, I wrote to Home Secretary Priti Patel to suggest that the Queen’s gallantry medal would be appropriate in the cases that I have described. Since then, I have been passed around various ministers—Chloe Smith, Alister Jack and more recently the Cabinet Office minister, Lord True—and there have also been ministerial discussions about it.

The upshot is that a case will not be considered if it is more than five years since the event occurred. We do know, however, that Constable Taylor was nominated for an award shortly after his death. A report dated 28 March 1977 from Chief Superintendent John Lauder to Chief Constable Patrick Hamill nominated individuals for awards. The Chief Superintendent recommended Constable George Taylor for a Queen’s bravery award. A letter dated 29 April 1977 from Chief Constable Patrick Hamill to the Secretary of State for Scotland at the time, Bruce Millan, endorsed Constable Taylor’s nomination.

After that letter to the Secretary of State, there is no further record of Constable Taylor’s nomination. Every English officer involved in the case subsequently received their awards. The Scottish police officers did not.

I have been in touch with Chief Constable Iain Livingstone. He has recognised the sacrifice of both men and wants to honour them with the highest accolade that he can—the chief constable’s bravery commendation. He is to be commended himself for doing that.

There is therefore no United Kingdom award for those brave men and other officers like them, and that brings me to the idea of a brand new award, which could fill the gap. It seems to me that, if any member of our emergency services loses their life in the line of duty, their family should get something that says that the nation values and thanks them. If a member of the armed forces is killed on operations or as a result of terrorism, their next of kin receive the Elizabeth cross as a mark of national recognition for their loss. That is quite right. There should be something similar for members of our emergency services.

The Police Federation of England and Wales, the Police Superintendents Association and the Prison Officers Association have all arrived at the same conclusion. I have written to the committee on the grant of honours, decorations and medals, which makes recommendations to the Queen. It would be great if the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government could get behind this.

This would be for George Taylor, William Ross Hunt, Yvonne Fletcher and many others in the police, fire services, ambulance services, coastguards and mountain rescue services. They are, all of them, heroes: brave to the core.

I am content with all that, but it strikes me that the very fact that the instrument breaches the 28-day rule suggests strongly that it has been rushed through, for the reasons that have been outlined. The instrument involves the use of a new test for rabies, which gives quicker results than the one that has been used traditionally, from which people get the results in two weeks—with the new test, the results come back in two to three days.

I am not sure which committee will be the lead committee but, whichever one it is, it should look at the issue and satisfy itself that the new test is up to the job. I am sure that it is—I have no reason to think otherwise—but the lead committee ought to look at that because, no matter where an animal has come from, we need to ensure that we are safe.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. What is the point of members coming to the chamber and asking straight questions when the minister completely ignores the questions and answers something else?

This is institutional corruption on a grand scale. Ivan McKee is showing breathtaking arrogance if he thinks that there has been any transparency in the matter. This is the SNP’s secret Scotland at its worst.

I will quote another law. The Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011 requires the Scottish Government to have a records management plan and to

“identify ... the individual who is responsible for management of”

a department’s

“public records”.

In this case, who was that person? I want the name. Why did they not ensure that a record was kept of the decision-making process?

The Auditor General said today:

“Independent audit was unable to conclude that governance at South Lanarkshire College”

In East Kilbride

“was satisfactory over the last year.”

There have been serious issues at the college. Whistleblowers have made a number of allegations, with reported claims of fraud, theft and general malfeasance. The principal, Aileen McKechnie, ordered an audit report that the college is refusing to publish. She and the interim clerk to the board were then suspended; I suspect that she was ruffling feathers.

The college has now published an action plan that says that procedures should be changed in areas such as procurement, preventing bribery and carrying out supplier due diligence. A light needs to be shone on what has been happening at the college. Will the First Minister order an investigation and commit to making its findings public?

I congratulate Katy Clark on bringing the motion to Parliament. However, her speech left me completely baffled by what she was attempting to say. When I intervened and asked her what she would change in the current system, she promised to tell us later in her speech, but she did not. Had I been able to intervene on Richard Leonard, I would have asked him exactly the same question, but I did not get to do so.

I think that Katy Clark is trying to intervene from a sedentary position—if I am right, I will give way.

It sounds like Katy Clark wants business as usual on the ferries, apart from the ports, which, it would appear, she wants to nationalise. Scottish Labour needs to put a cost on that if that is what it is suggesting.

Katy Clark’s motion says that

“lifeline ferry services should be in the public sector”.

Conservative members support lifeline ferry services but we do not come to that point with the ideology with which Labour approaches it. We want ferry services that work for the islanders, who are the most important people in relation to this issue.

Katy Clark was not a member at the time, so she might not be aware that the former Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee conducted an exhaustive inquiry into ferries, the Ferguson debacle and how to run ferry services.

One of the committee’s recommendations was that the Government should commission a review into how to procure and run ferry services, which led to the Government’s appointment of Ernst & Young to carry out the project Neptune review. The Government cannot be criticised for having done that after a cross-party committee of the Parliament asked it to.

It is entirely right that we explore options for a system that is clearly failing. The problem is that although Ernst & Young has completed its review and produced the project Neptune report, that report has simply been sitting with Transport Scotland. The minister has the report, but despite promising to issue it to Parliament, she has not yet done so, so we simply do not know what it recommends.

However, it is right to look at the governance and at questions such as whether we should unbundle the west coast services. That does not have to mean privatisation. The whole thing could still be run and paid for—subsidised—by the Government; it might just introduce other operators. For example, there is Western Ferries, which runs a very good service already, or Pentland Ferries—it probably would not be interested because of where it is based, but other operators like it could come in.

To be frank, if Labour listened to people such as those on the Mull & Iona Ferry Committee, it would know that that is exactly what they are calling for. At the end of the day, we need to put islanders first, and we need to be open to new ideas and get rid of the dogma in which Labour is bogged down.