I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests in that I own and manage land.

Minister, you suggested that the Government had planted 10,000 hectares with trees in the past year. That happens to be 5,000 hectares—or 30 per cent—below the target. In the past six years, you were 15,000 hectares below the target, and this year the budget has been cut by 14 per cent per hectare planted. How will you get more trees planted when you do not have a good record of doing that in the past?

I am coming to the point of order. If I can just finish this sentence, I will come back to it.

I obtained, through the FOI request, Ivan McKee’s briefing notes, which had been prepared by his staff in order to allow him to answer my questions. I can only assume that he read those briefing notes, and it was clear from them that he was aware of the delay to hulls 801 and 802 and of the extension to the budget cost.

Presiding Officer, I know that it is disrespectful and unacceptable to suggest that somebody has lied to or misled the Parliament, so I will not do so, but it is clear from the unambiguous evidence that I have here that the minister’s response was, at best, a misrepresentation of the facts or, worse, plainly untruthful. Therefore, I seek your guidance on how members of this Parliament can hold the Government to account if it takes numerous FOI requests to prove that a minister has clearly been economical with the truth.

On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I do not raise this lightly; I realise that there has been some delay in getting to this point.

In response to my topical question on 6 September last year, the Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, Ivan McKee, assured the Parliament that the budget and completion timescales for vessels 801 and 802 were on target. Just four days before I asked that question, I visited the shipyard, where I met the chief executive. He was clear that the budget would be exceeded and that vessel 802 would not be delivered on time. The notes of my visit are available, should they be required.

Ivan McKee’s answer to my topical question baffled me, as it appeared that it was more than a political non-answer of the type that we can often expect. Subsequent freedom of information requests revealed email exchanges between Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd and Ferguson Marine showing that they both knew of the problems before my question was asked. That begged the question: was the minister aware before he answered my topical question that there were, indeed, further delays and expenses relating to hulls 801 and 802?

Through an FOI request, I obtained Ivan McKee’s briefing notes—

I absolutely accept that point, but if the cabinet secretary was stuck on the A9 in a car, and a single-crewed ambulance turned up to collect him, I bet that he would wish that there were two people in that ambulance, so that he could not only be treated but taken to the hospital.

Let us look at other issues, such as the pre-hospital immediate care and trauma—PICT—team, which was going to be disbanded. That was a group of doctors who were working seven days a week, on the ground, to deliver care outside the hospitals. They were the only ones who were capable of dealing with patients who were stuck in ambulances on the forecourt because, according to convention, A and E doctors do not go out to ambulances. The PICT team doctors could go out, but it looked as though the team was going to be cut.

What about the other people whom we really want to see—our GPs? There has been a big fall in the number of GPs and an increase in demands on them. Miles Mack, who is one of the GPs in the Highlands, has warned about the challenges of recruiting GPs across the Highlands. It is really difficult. I know of at least three GP practices in the Highlands that have only one GP. What happens when that GP is sick? The other day, I met a constituent who has waited 12 weeks for a telephone appointment. They said to me that they are desperate for the telephone appointment because they want to get on another waiting list. They told me—these are their exact words—that they felt that

“it would be easier to get a face-to-face appointment with the Pope”

than it would be to get one with their GP. We should not be in that situation.

Let us look at Caithness. In 2016, there were 250 births in Caithness general hospital. The cabinet secretary’s Government centralised the maternity service so that, apart from very few, all births now take place in Raigmore hospital. Last year, 180 births took place in Inverness and only 10 in Caithness. Of those 180 births, more than half were induced. Is that how we want to go forward? Is it down to the shortage of staff or the fact that we are not providing what we need?

If we look at the orthopaedic figures, we see that 2,569 patients are waiting for orthopaedic surgery. Research from Aberdeen suggests that those patients might have to wait seven years for treatment. That will not be solved by the national treatment centre, which the cabinet secretary mentions in his motion and is delivering two years late and over budget. It is still not fully staffed—20 per cent of staff are still to be found. He said that, when the centre is working at full capacity, it will deal with approximately 2,000 cases a year. We have that many cases in the Highlands, but that is a national treatment centre. We should never forget that the national treatment centre will deal only with the easy orthopaedic cases—not with the difficult ones that have been waiting for four years and whose hips and joints are damaged because they have waited so long.

Therefore, the national treatment centre is not all that it promises to be. According to the figures that I have worked out, 868 patients will have to travel outwith the Highlands, either to Aberdeen or the Golden Jubilee hospital, in order to get the treatment that they need. Of those, 184 patients have been waiting in excess of three years. That is the state that we are in, and it is completely unacceptable.

The Presiding Officer will be tight with my time, so let us look very briefly at another area. There are more than 700 children on the waiting list for neurological development assessment. The maximum waiting time for treatment is meant to be 36 weeks, but that is just in the cabinet secretary’s mind—the staff estimate that it will take two years. Unacceptable pressure is being placed on them by mismanagement. I think that that is unacceptable and will, without doubt, result in bullying, because people are being set unrealistic targets that they cannot achieve.

I believe that this Government has a lot to answer for when it comes to the state of our national health service, which I am really proud of and passionate about protecting.

Cabinet secretary, I have said to your two predecessors—

I told Shona Robison and Jeane Freeman that it was time for them to go if we wanted to protect the health service, and I say the same to you. Your time is up, cabinet secretary—you have failed us and you are a disgrace.

I start by thanking Labour for giving us the opportunity to discuss the national health service. I do not agree with everything in its motion, but I am grateful that it, like us, wants to concentrate on this subject, which is—dare I say it?—close to my heart and has become very personal to me over the past year.

Let us consider some of the problems that we are facing across Scotland, and let us turn the spotlight on the Highlands.

We know that, in December, across Scotland just more than 50 per cent of A and E patients were seen within a four-hour waiting time. That is the lowest figure ever recorded. The crisis in A and E has extended outside that department and on to the ambulance park. For the first time in the Highlands, we have seen ambulances that are carrying patients who are in need of treatment waiting outside hospitals. Furthermore, some ambulances have been deployed with only one member of the crew in them. The First Minister admitted that there were about 1,400 instances of single-crewed ambulances being deployed.

Thank you. The first member to ask questions will be Monica Lennon.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the second meeting in 2023 of the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee.

Agenda item 1 is a decision on whether to take item 3 in private. Item 3 is consideration of the evidence that we will hear today as part of our scrutiny of the Scottish Government’s budget for 2023-24. Do members agree to take that item in private?

Members indicated agreement.

Sorry, Kerry; I did not hear that because your microphone did not come on.

Do not worry: the gentleman from broadcasting will push the button. I just missed it. I am slightly deaf, so it would help if you could repeat what you said.