Chamber and committees

It might be useful to include a question about the appeal process in any letter to the Government.

I welcome Christine Grahame’s guests to the public gallery and thank her for securing this debate and for the opportunity that it has given Parliament to discuss men’s health week as well as Clare Prenton’s play “Men Don’t Talk” and the work of men’s sheds in general across Scotland.

As Christine Grahame has outlined, Clare Prenton produced the one-act play “Men Don’t Talk” after conducting a number of workshops with groups from the men’s shed in Peebles. That work shows the huge benefit of men’s sheds, which I hope that we can all acknowledge today. “Men Don’t Talk” highlights the work that men’s sheds such as Peebles and District men’s shed do and helps to dispel the myth that men do not talk. Rather, men talk in a place and at a time when they feel comfortable to do so, which is why men’s sheds and other community projects are so essential to all our communities.

The debate is taking place during men’s health week, which is about raising awareness of health problems that disproportionately affect men. Men’s shed organisations across the country are indeed a vital source of support, friendship, relief and comfort to many and provide that strong support network that men often feel—particularly in today’s technologically driven world—that they are not necessarily connected to. It is important that that human contact is really looked at.

Men’s sheds provide an excellent opportunity to act early in the work that needs to take place to address people’s depression, relationship breakdowns and male suicide, particularly for men in Scotland from the poorest social backgrounds, who are often the most vulnerable due to issues around unemployment and poor social conditions.

The figures surrounding mental health and suicide among men in Scotland are shocking—we have had many debates on that—and I think that men’s sheds have a positive role to play in that jigsaw of how we find a solution.

In Scotland today, more young people under the age of 29 die by suicide than from all types of cancer combined. In 2020, 71 per cent of all suicides recorded were men, further illustrating the disproportionately high number of suicides among men in Scotland.

In my Lothian region, between 2016 and 2020, more than 500 people died from suicide, with 389—70 per cent—of those being men, which aligns with the national average. I recently met with the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association at its Banchory headquarters to discuss the challenges that face the charity, the work that it can do to help to turn around some of those problems, and the role that it needs to play in helping us to address them.

Anyone who has interacted with a men’s shed will know how their work is making a huge impact on local men in every community, and that the model is working well in rural and urban Scotland. Edinburgh and the Lothians, which I represent, are fortunate to have a number of men’s shed associations operating in the area, but we need to look at how we can further expand them, which I think is an important part of what this debate can help to achieve.

The debate shows how members’ business debates can drive change. The member has managed to do that because, yesterday, the minister responded to the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association to indicate that the Scottish Government will make available £75,000 of core funding. As Christine Grahame has outlined, that is fine for staffing, but we need a future commitment on support. I hope that the debate can help the three-year funding request that was put forward and rejected to be revisited, and that ministers will look towards the development of a future sustainable financial package, because it is hugely important for that to happen if men’s sheds are to be sustainable and expanded.

With just under 3,000 individual members and a pre-Covid engagement of about 10,000 members across Scotland, the Scottish Men’s Sheds Association is the largest and fastest growing member-led men’s health charity in Scotland—we should celebrate that. Therefore, it is vital that we look towards how its work will be expanded.

I thank Christine Grahame and Clare Prenton for bringing the work of men’s sheds to the attention of the Parliament. I will close with an important quote from another woman, the actress Glenn Close, that sums up the issue quite nicely. She said:

“What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candour, and more unashamed conversation.”

I sincerely hope that, by next year, when we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first men’s shed in Scotland, and when, I hope, the pandemic will be behind us, we can tackle issues of men’s health and wellbeing with more sunlight, more candour and more unashamed conversation.

Evidence shows that people with motor neurone disease spend their final months fighting and waiting for adaptations to accessible homes that are urgently needed. What plans does the Government have to fast-track applications for adaptations to accessible housing for people with MND, which is a life-limiting condition?

To ask the Scottish Government whether it plans to allocate any funding specifically for alcohol services, in addition to that allocated to alcohol and drug partnerships for drugs services. (S6O-01215)

I thank the minister for his answer. Although the Scottish Government stated that it recognises the twin public emergencies of drug deaths and alcohol harms, it stated earlier this month that it has no plans to introduce alcohol-specific treatment targets until 2024. I think that that is unacceptable. In 2020, the number of people who tragically died because of alcohol increased by 17 per cent to 1,190. Will the Scottish Government now rethink its approach and introduce specific treatment targets?

That is helpful. Does anyone else want to come in on that point?

Good morning to the panel. Thank you for joining us.

The witnesses have touched on a lot of the questions that I wanted to ask. However, I want to get more details about the auditing of current plots. Ian Welsh mentioned splitting plots. To what extent has the legislation meant that councils have done such work and have looked at how the current maximum capacity is utilised? Has that been done, or have we basically just developed waiting lists?

Thank you—that is a good point. We have seen allotments with communal composting areas, for example, which helps to prevent replication from everyone having a composting space on their allotment.

With regard to using other parts of the 2015 act, do you have any examples of where common good land is now being facilitated—touching on what you said earlier—to provide smaller starter plots with raised beds? People can see if they really want to have an allotment first, and they can then transition to having half a plot or a full plot. Has the 2015 act helped to develop that approach in any way?

Luckily mine is working. Good morning, minister, and good morning to the others on the panel. I want to follow on from Pam Duncan-Glancy’s line of questioning. What work has the Scottish Government undertaken to predict the number of people who may see their award ended or reduced, and has that modelling been undertaken?

I take from your answer that that is where you think this might go: a third, a third and a third.