Chamber and committees

When the Parliament passed the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act in 2017, the cabinet secretary who led that legislation, Angela Constance, told members:

“statements of intent are all very well, but it is what we do that counts.”—[Official Report, 8 November 2017; c 62.]

I completely agree. Nearly a decade later, when it comes to child poverty, that intent still lies far from delivery and Scotland’s children continue to pay the price. Children are still going to school hungry, despite their parents skipping meals themselves. They are worried about rent, bills and whether their family can keep a roof over their heads. Those are the kinds of worries that should be the furthest thing from children’s minds. They should be dreaming big and thinking about what they can achieve in life, rather than having those concerns.

It is a real worry that child poverty has become a generational tragedy. Too often, children born into poverty grow up to raise their own children in poverty. Despite having the powers to take a different path, we are still failing far too many young people. The Government comes to the chamber at the start of this parliamentary session and, once again, says that eradicating child poverty is its defining mission. However, it seems as though, instead of having a credible plan to meet its own legislative targets, the Government is settling for moving the goalposts. Reviewing the definition of poverty will not lift a single child out of it. The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 was meant to hold ministers accountable for progress, but organisations such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have questioned whether the latest delivery plan meets the requirements of the act, and only 26 per cent of people in Scotland believe that the Government has done enough to tackle child poverty. Ministers have argued that income-based targets fail to capture the impact of childcare, employability support and wider family services—but the problem is not that those policies are missing from the targets; it is that they have not been delivered at the scale that we require.

Nowhere is that seen as clearly as it is in housing. Today, nearly 10,000 children are living in temporary accommodation without the security and stability of a permanent home. No Government in the world could claim credibly that child poverty is a defining mission while record numbers of children remain trapped in temporary accommodation. Housing policy is child poverty policy. If ending child poverty is truly the Government’s mission, then getting those 10,000 children into permanent homes should be the priority.

Labour has set out practical measures to reduce poverty, including helping parents into secure employment through a parent work scheme, affordable childcare that works for families, support with holiday childcare costs, family network hubs that are based on sure start principles, breakfast clubs in every primary school, action on school debt and a renewed focus on tackling homelessness.

Clearly, there are welcome areas of crossover in the programme for government. We welcome them and we would be happy to support them, but we would like to work to push the Government further on some of the measures that I mentioned. Those are anti-poverty policies because they help parents earn more, reduce costs and improve children’s life chances.

I will finish with a question to the Government. Does it still intend to meet the child poverty targets that were set out in the 2017 act? Reviewing them will not pull a single child out of poverty, but delivering on them will.

I move amendment S7M-01022.1, to leave out from “supports” and insert:

“regrets that, while eradicating child poverty has been a defining mission for the Scottish Government for nearly a decade, too many children remain trapped in poverty, record numbers are living in temporary accommodation and key anti-poverty measures have not been delivered; reaffirms the commitment to meet the targets set out in the Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017; believes that a new approach is clearly needed with a focus on both delivery and tackling the root causes of poverty; further believes that tackling child poverty requires action across housing, homelessness, childcare, employment and family support as well as finally closing the attainment gap, and believes that if ministers are serious about delivery, they should engage in cross-party working to achieve the statutory targets and improve outcomes for children and families across Scotland."

15:39

NHS Lanarkshire submitted its £2.1 billion full business case in December 2025, but ministers did not announce the decision to reset the project until seven weeks after the election. The Government presented Monklands as a major capital project during the election only to send it back to the drawing board after votes had been counted. Why were the people of Lanarkshire not told before the election if there were serious affordability concerns? When did ministers first know that plans were going back to the drawing board?

The child payment has had a clear impact, but it has not had enough of an impact. The Scottish Government is still close to missing its legally binding child poverty targets—so that is still an issue.

The UK Government has implemented a range of child poverty reduction measures, including one that Neil Gray and I have campaigned for: the removal of the two-child limit. That will be the single biggest measure to lift children out of poverty in the UK since before the early 1990s.

There is still work to do. Scotland has done something different with the child payment, but that is the beauty of devolution. Social security is devolved to Scotland, and that is to be welcomed, but it is not to say that nothing is happening at the UK level. Ongoing work is happening there.

The UK Government is working on child poverty, bringing together housing, employment, childcare and family support in a completely cross-governmental way, because reducing child poverty has never been only about social security, as Neil Gray would acknowledge. It is also about providing secure homes, affordable childcare and well-paid work and using absolutely every lever at our disposal to tackle child poverty and improve family incomes and opportunities.

Although we campaigned for the Scottish child payment way before its introduction, and it has lifted children out of poverty, there is more to be done. Wider intervention by the Scottish Government is needed if it is to lift children out of poverty.

To ask the Scottish Government whether, when briefed by officials on the full business case for the Monklands replacement project in March 2026, the then Minister for Public Health considered the £2.1 billion proposal to be at risk of rejection. (S7O-00165)

The minister set out the damage that is taking place in this country as a result of leaving a political and economic union, and there is nothing in his statement that I can disagree with. In his conclusion, he asked what we are prepared to do about it. Can the Government set out a bit more detail on how we in the Parliament can pull together and work together, as we did in relation to the vote that he mentioned in his statement, to achieve that outcome?

Driving down child poverty is a key priority of the Government and of the Parliament as a whole, but reviewing the targets that the Government is failing to hit does not seem to align with the rhetoric. The Scottish Government’s impact assessment of the child poverty delivery plan is that it will not meet the targets. Key campaigners in the child poverty sector, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Save the Children, say that the plan may not even be lawful. Can the cabinet secretary say when a revised child poverty delivery plan that meets the Government’s statutory responsibilities will be published?

After years of cuts, councils are struggling to put an offer on the table that meets the cost of living pressures for their staff. Year after year, we have disputes and disruptions—there has been rubbish piling up on Edinburgh streets during the festival and school and nursery closures—and, annually, there is intervention from the Government to resolve them. What more constructive, regular discussions can happen between national and local Government to break the cycle of disputes and late interventions to solve them after the public has already faced disruption? How does the Government plan to formalise those discussions?

To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities regarding the pay negotiations for 2026-27. (S7O-00030)

In my first speech of the new parliamentary session, I congratulate you, Deputy Presiding Officer, on your election to your role, and I welcome members of the health team to their new briefs.

I thank the people of Central Scotland, who have elected me to represent them again, and I also thank those who live in the West Lothian part of the new region. I am grateful for their support, and I look forward to serving communities across the new region by holding the Government to account on the issues that matter most to those communities and supporting them when they need me. However, like Miles Briggs, I hope that changes, particularly changes in delivery of NHS services, will make that less of a necessity for many of our constituents.

Turning to the subject of the debate, I add my own thanks to Scotland’s NHS and social care staff. Their everyday dedication, professionalism and compassion, often under the most immense pressure, show Scotland at its very best.

I am grateful to all members who have contributed to today’s debate. We have heard many thoughtful contributions from members across the chamber. In particular, we have heard a range of excellent first speeches from new members. Helen McDade raised her considerable experience of ME; David Green rightly raised the issue of maternity services in Caithness; David Linden flagged the cross-party campaign in recognition of the need for 24/7 thrombectomy services; Joe Long brought his long experience of supporting people with learning disabilities; Cara McKee raised the crucial issue of social care pay; Morven-May MacCallum is a powerful advocate for those with Lyme disease and chronic illnesses; and Laura Moodie raised the issue of access to care, particularly maternity services, in rural areas. I think all members will agree that they gave fantastic first speeches, and I look forward to hearing much more from them throughout the rest of the session.

At the start of a parliamentary session, it is normal for the Government to bring a series of debates on the big portfolios and issues and to set out its priorities. However, I find it strange that, in its motion today, the Government has almost nothing to say about its priorities for the NHS, beyond stating its thanks to and recognition of staff, as is absolutely right. I am surprised that the motion lacks detail on the Government’s ambitions.

NHS and social care staff are looking for more. They are looking for details on how they will be supported to do the jobs that they love. The public are also looking for more. They are looking for more details on how our most treasured public service will be protected and how it will be there for them and their families when they need it most, because, for lots of people recently, it has not been there when they have needed it.

It was as though the Government was going through the motions. It knew that it had to have a debate on the NHS in the first couple of weeks of the session, but it seemingly had nothing to say in its motion about how the NHS will be reformed and protected, so it lodged a motion that simply commends and thanks staff.

That is not quite what staff are looking for. They seem to be being treated almost as a human shield in a parliamentary debate. They deserve far more than that from the Government. They deserve the ambitions for the next five years to be set out in detail in Government motions. They want answers to the big issues that our NHS faces. They want answers for the more than three quarters of a million people who are waiting for tests and treatment, for the people who are struggling to get a GP appointment and for the people who have cancer or are worrying that they have cancer while waiting time standards continue to be missed. Healthcare staff, who continue to work under extraordinary pressure, want answers.

For some, increasingly, the answer is to get into debt and to go private. Unbearable waits while experiencing debilitating pain are preventing people from going about their lives, going to work and caring for their families. This week’s figures show that the number of private healthcare admissions in Scotland is at a record high for the fifth consecutive year, with Scotland seeing the sharpest increase anywhere in the United Kingdom. That indicates the extreme stress that the NHS is under and, more importantly, the real stress that people are under as they live with conditions while desperately waiting for treatment.

Labour founded the NHS on the principle that healthcare should be available to all, according to need, but Scots are being forced to pay out of their own pockets for healthcare that they have already funded through their own tax contributions. We should take that seriously as a huge flashing red warning light for our NHS.

I pay particular tribute to a certain group of staff: the staff of the neonatal and obstetrics unit at Wishaw hospital. Without their skill, expertise and support, my wife and daughter would not be alive today. The best way to recognise them is to ensure that they are supported, protected and strengthened. They are there for tiny, premature babies, like Rosa, who are yet to be born, but the Government has proposed downgrading that neonatal intensive care unit. Doing that will mean that the smallest and sickest babies will travel further and wait longer for life-saving services. That will separate families at the most vulnerable time in their entire lives.

The staff at Wishaw have already shown what excellence looks like, with their award-winning, life-saving care, but they do not feel supported. They do not feel as though their service is being invested in, and they have no certainty about their future. The most crucial point is that the staff are worried about the premature babies being born in Lanarkshire without that intensive care unit.

In closing, I say this in the most collegiate, sensitive way I can to the new health team: it is not too late to review and reverse that decision.

16:31