Chamber and committees

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 stick with this important topic. The committee is keen to find out how councils are working with partners to promote recycling and a shift to the circular economy. We have heard today from council leaders that the business sector is important. I was struck by what Councillor Aitken said about Glasgow being seen as a leader on the circular economy. I do not want to sound too negative, but it is a reality check that Scottish household waste recycling rates are the worst in the UK. Only 42 per cent of household waste was recycled in 2020, and Glasgow sits near the bottom of the league table. What lessons are being learned from other parts of the UK?

In a previous meeting, Zero Waste Scotland told us that Scotland’s waste system is somewhat fragmented. What are councils doing to share best practice in meeting the challenges? We have heard why recycling rates have been low and about what needs to change. Please talk about your own experiences. I would also like to know about energy from waste, and particularly about incinerators. Zero Waste Scotland told us that incineration is not low carbon and that we are too reliant on incineration and landfill. Do your councils support a moratorium or potential ban on incinerators? Are you consulting your communities about that?

Thank you, Councillor Aitken. I will pass back to the convener, because I am getting a message that we are running out of time. I would like to hear from Councillor McVey and Councillor Laing, but perhaps they can follow up in writing with any points that need to be covered.

That is helpful. I will pivot back to the issues of the circular economy and recycling. As part of the inquiry, the committee is keen to understand how councils are working with a range of partners on those aims. In the earlier evidence session, we heard from our city colleagues about the challenges with recycling. Why are recycling rates quite low? What needs to change? There is a lot of focus on the role of incinerators and the waste hierarchy. What is the view—if there is one—in your authorities on the potential for a moratorium or ban on such facilities? I will ask Margaret Davidson to come in first.

I ask Simon Fieldhouse to comment on that issue from an operational point of view. Councillor Davidson talked about moving beyond just bidding for projects. I know that we get lots of money for pilot projects, but perhaps the sustainable funding is not there. Do you agree with Councillor Davidson that a more strategic approach would be helpful in the net zero journey?

I will ask about the circular economy and recycling, as I did with the previous panel, but first I have a question for Councillor Davidson. I was quite struck by the comment in your opening remarks that you need more “strategic help” from the Scottish Government and that you need more listening. I have been following a bit of a row in the press about a pre-Christmas letter to the First Minister from all the council leaders asking for an urgent meeting. I understand that that meeting has not been granted. Will you elaborate on what you mean when you ask for more listening? Can you give an example of where you would like more strategic support from the Scottish Government?

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.

Margaret Davidson touched on the polluter pays principle. I ask Simon Fieldhouse to answer the question from a Dumfries and Galloway perspective.

It has been a pleasure to listen to the debate so far. I congratulate Rachael Hamilton on securing it and attracting so many members to take part.

I was struck by Emma Roddick’s observation that it is good to have this debate outwith endo awareness month. We have to continue to do that. If anyone is listening who has an interest because they live with endo, whether or not it is diagnosed, it is important that they do not just feel encouraged but see that we are determined to take action.

Like other members, I welcome the women’s health plan, which is a positive development in Scotland that I hope will represent a real breakthrough. My party campaigned for such a plan. We now need to consider how we will achieve the important ambition of reducing the waiting time for diagnosis from around eight and a half years to 12 months by the end of this parliamentary session.

When the minister responds, I hope that she will be able to give us a little more detail and reassurance in that regard, because none of us wants to build up people’s hopes and expectations, only for them to continue to be disappointed throughout their lives. That is key.

I have been reflecting on some of the things that I was involved with during endo awareness month in March last year. Evelyn Tweed shared a personal story about being told as a young woman—a teenager—just to get pregnant. That reminded me that I tweeted that it is appalling that women are still being told to get pregnant as a way of treating their endometriosis, after hearing, on BBC Radio Scotland, young women in their 20s share their experience of that happening.

It is good that Dr Sandesh Gulhane is taking part in the debate. He will probably want to share what he has heard tonight with general practitioner and clinician colleagues. We have first-class endometriosis specialists and clinicians in Scotland, but we are not cascading the knowledge and good practice enough and, too often, women and other people who experience endometriosis, including trans and non-binary people, are just not believed.

That brings me to a point that other members made about menstrual health and wellbeing education. I know from correspondence that I had with Jeane Freeman and others in Government that the Government takes the view that it cannot mandate things on the curriculum. However, we have to get serious about working with schools to ensure that young people have all the information and tools that they need at an early age.

I join Rachael Hamilton in paying tribute to Sir David Amess for all that he did in Parliament to shine a light on endometriosis. The all-party parliamentary group does important work. I am the chair of the Scottish Parliament’s cross-party group on women’s health, and I hope that we can continue to work together. It was Kenny Gibson—who gave us a pocket history of previous debates in this Parliament—who encouraged me to set up the cross-party group on women’s health, and I thank him. I hope that more men will get involved.

We should focus on the things that we get right in Scotland. Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Act 2021 receiving royal assent and making it on to the statute book. I thank everyone who lives with endometriosis for sharing their experience in the context of the Period Products (Free Provision) (Scotland) Bill, which was about not just ensuring that we improve access to period products, but sharing people’s stories so that we can get it right in the workplace, in education settings and here, in the Parliament.

I encourage my MSP colleagues to become endometriosis-friendly employees, as I have done. It is really easy to do and they can take this important conversation into their constituencies or regions. They can get in touch with Endometriosis UK, which will tell them how to sign up.

I again thank Rachael Hamilton. It is great that everyone has taken part in tonight’s debate. I hope that we will hear from the minister that there is a plan to put these important ambitions into practice.