Chamber and committees

Yes, that is correct.

It sounds as though there might not be enough clarity at this point. Making the transition to a circular economy is a really important mission for all of us.

Let us stick with procurement, which is a specialist area. I apologise that we did not get your document in time, because of the recent information technology problems. What are some of the barriers and challenges around procurement? I heard, for example, that some local suppliers who provide goods on a leasing basis and who can refurbish goods often find that they cannot supply the public sector because of the way in which budgets are measured, so local authorities and the public sector end up buying things brand new, which might sometimes be the right approach but is not always. Are those the kinds of conversations that take place? How does that feed up to the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities or the Scottish Government?

That is very helpful, Mark.

I have a supplementary question for Ailsa Raeburn. You talked about the fact that it can be more difficult for larger councils to get engagement right. I doubt that we will change the size of our local authorities overnight, so what advice do you have for them? What would you like them to do differently?

Yes, we could move on to Philip Revell and perhaps come back to Ailsa if she reconnects.

Sorry, convener—I am getting a message on my screen as I have had to reconnect. I missed the past five minutes as I had some IT problems; I apologise for that.

I want to pick up on the theme of waste management and the role of public bodies in Scotland in the journey to a circular economy. I will ask our second panel of witnesses specifically about the role of communities. How well are local authorities involving communities in the full agenda? We heard some frustrations from witnesses on the previous panel about resources and some aspects of engagement. I am interested to hear what the main challenges and opportunities are. Perhaps Philip Revell can start.

That is helpful; thank you, Philip. You will probably be aware that an MSP has proposed a right to food (Scotland) bill, so you might want to engage with that.

Convener, it looks as though we do not have Ailsa, so I am happy to hand back to you. If Ailsa’s connection returns, perhaps we can hear from her towards the end of the session.

People who live in care homes in which self-isolation is 14 days—it can last longer—were not mentioned in the statement. Many of them fear that they are being forgotten as the rest of us move on. Some families from care home relatives Scotland describe their loved ones as having no visitors, no freedom and, worst of all, no hope. Will the First Minister listen to their concerns and reassess the proportionality of the 14-day isolation rules? While we wait for the Government to give effect to Anne’s law, will she ensure that full use is made of personal protective equipment, testing and vaccines to facilitate safe visiting and contact between care home residents and their loved ones?

I listened to the First Minister’s reply to Anas Sarwar and I have to be blunt: people in Lanarkshire are very afraid of becoming sick. Those who are already physically or mentally unwell are already at breaking point because many of them—such as Liz Barrie, who I have mentioned before—have been on waiting lists since before the pandemic.

The code black situation has been going on for 12 weeks now. On 9 December, I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, who is, I think, sitting beside the First Minister, to ask for an urgent meeting with all the MSPs in Lanarkshire, because we are all worried, and I did not even get a response.

What am I supposed to tell constituents in Lanarkshire who are reaching for the Samaritans Scotland phone number because they cannot get through to general practice surgeries and they feel that they are not allowed to go to accident and emergency? The letter from NHS Lanarkshire yesterday did not even mention mental health. It is very scary for someone who is not a doctor and cannot decide whether they are an urgent case to hear about the suspension of services. Can we please get the meeting that I asked Humza Yousaf for, and can we get sight of a plan so that people in Lanarkshire can sleep better at night?

Although it is always good to talk about mental health and wellbeing, people in Scotland really need the Government to take bold and urgent action to address fundamental system failure.

I must use some of my time to address breaking news that affects my constituents. NHS Lanarkshire declared a code black emergency on 22 October last year, which means that services are operating at the highest level of risk. That is clearly not a sustainable situation. I wrote to the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care on 9 December asking him to meet me and other Lanarkshire MSPs as a matter of urgency to brief us on his plans to reduce the risk to our constituents. Twelve weeks on, I do not have the words to describe how badly the situation has declined—it is off the scale.

Today, the health board advised that GP practices have been instructed to move to a managed suspension of services, which will continue for four weeks. However, given the fact that the code black emergency has already gone on for three months, it is hard to have confidence that the Scottish Government has a proper plan to get out of the crisis, beyond shutting down more services, cancelling operations and keeping people in despair.

I refer to people such as my constituent Liz Barrie from East Kilbride, whose mental health is in tatters because she lives with constant chronic pain and is expected to wait three years for a vital pain relief injection. Liz has already tried to take her own life. That is how serious the matter is.

It is extremely distressing for me and my team that the phone number that we most often hand out is 116 123. That is the number for Samaritans Scotland. I am grateful to all the Samaritans volunteers for providing a lifesaving helpline 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, but I feel sad and angry that people are contemplating suicide because they cannot get NHS treatment and have lost all hope.

I return to the grim announcement from NHS Lanarkshire, which cautions that only the most urgent and time-critical cases will be responded to. How are urgent and time-critical being defined?

Those who can afford it are going private, but what about everyone else? It worries me greatly—I hope that it is an oversight—that arrangements for people with mental health concerns are not even mentioned in the correspondence and the press release that NHS Lanarkshire published today. The minister must, this afternoon, give a cast-iron guarantee that mental health is not being deprioritised in NHS Lanarkshire or, to be frank, anywhere else.

Laying everything at the door of Covid is not an answer; we all know that mental health services were in a really bad way before the pandemic. We need transformative system change, and again I make no apology for drawing the attention of Government and Parliament to a petition that my constituent Karen McKeown spearheaded following the death of her partner Luke Henderson from suicide—a matter that I highlighted in Paul McLennan’s members’ business debate on world mental health day last year. The death of Luke Henderson was a tragic loss that could have been avoided if we had mental health services that functioned properly. Karen’s petition has already moved MSPs to tears in committee, but she does not look for our sympathy. She wants an independent review of mental health services, and I appeal to the minister to agree to that.

I also want to acknowledge the thousands of people who are living in care homes and whose mental and emotional wellbeing has declined during the pandemic as a result of isolation and loneliness. Before the election, the SNP promised to give effect to Anne’s law. Anne Duke has sadly passed away, and her family and the care home relatives Scotland group want to know when Anne’s law will be implemented. Family caregivers must be part of the care plan if we are serious about mental health and wellbeing.

We all know and appreciate healthcare workers who do their best with the time and resource available to them—at times their own mental health and wellbeing take a battering. The minister must act to prevent burnout, exhaustion and post-traumatic stress disorder from becoming the norm in our public services.

I, like my Scottish Labour colleague Carol Mochan, am frustrated by the motion before us. For too long, SNP ministers have been complacent and have taken a sticking plaster approach to mental health services while people continue to fall through the cracks. It is unacceptable that the Government’s 18-week waiting time targets for CAMHS have never been met; that there are currently almost 2,000 children and young people on the waiting list who have had to wait for more than a year to begin treatment; and that there are currently more than 1,000 vacancies for mental health nurses and almost 100 consultant psychiatrist vacancies.

The Labour amendment injects some reality into the debate. SNP ministers have failed to take workforce planning seriously, and their target of recruiting 800 mental health workers is at risk. Missed targets and broken promises have consequences. I support the Scottish Labour amendment, and I urge the Government to accept Karen McKeown’s petition, as nothing short of an independent review of mental health services and complete system change will do.

I will let you get some water. Before I move on to Adam McVey and Jenny Laing, I have a brief supplementary question for Susan Aitken, if she can recover her voice, which I hope the others will also pick up. We are trying to get into really granular examples—the practical decisions that people make every day.

Last year, I did some research into the number of nappies that go to landfill in Scotland. I think that it is 160 million nappies every year, but only five out of 32 local authorities in Scotland have a real nappy initiative. North Ayrshire Council has the best example. Is that the kind of scheme that Glasgow City Council and others should be looking at? We know that nappies are expensive, but cloth nappies can be quite pricey. Is that something that is discussed through your networks in COSLA? It could make a real practical difference. If Susan Aitken is able to speak now, I will bat that back to her.