Chamber and committees

Thank you.

Simon Brown alluded to this in his previous response, but the previous panel suggested that the fine element could be paid by what are sometimes quite well-funded anti-abortion groups, which means that it is not going to act as a deterrent. Do any of the panel members have a view on that? I will come to you first, Simon, as you mentioned it.

If no one has anything to add, I have a final question. In its response, Police Scotland notes that the fine-only approach has implications for the power of arrest. Can you explain for the record what those implications might be, and how they might influence decisions on enforcing these laws?

I thank Stephen Kerr for the invitation to intervene. The SNP Government was elected by the people of Scotland to put forward the case for independence. If we are not to talk about it in this place, where does he suggest we do it? How do the people of Scotland make the case?

The establishment of a national care service can be one of the most significant reforms of public services since the creation of the national health service. The significance of that work is reflected in the volume and breadth of contributors to the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee’s scrutiny and in the number of briefings that colleagues have received for the debate. I am grateful to everyone who continues to share their experience and expertise.

It is fair to say that the case for change in social care is unassailable and that everyone agrees that it is necessary. The committee certainly heard that loud and clear. There is a need for all our citizens to have access to consistently high-quality social care support across Scotland, whenever they need it.

I am sure that we all want our social care workforce to flourish and would support the Scottish Government’s goal—of future proofing the social care sector—to be realised for generations to come and for people who are coming into the profession.

I have not been a member of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee for long but, through previous work as a local councillor and a member of an integration joint board, in previous and current parliamentary committee work and—perhaps most significantly for me—in my current constituency work, I recognise the importance for our nation of getting care right and the devastating costs to individuals, families, workers and communities when we do not.

Here in Scotland we have a brilliant, committed workforce in the public and third sectors and a legion of unpaid carers who are delivering high-quality care to the best of their ability in some terribly difficult situations. We also have pockets of really excellent practice and services that enrich lives.

However, there are also far too many people whose needs are not being met. Too many people are in hospital wards when they should be at home, recovering. Too many people are waiting for adaptations to their homes to make them safe and enable them to live independently with dignity. Too many people are assessed as requiring services and interventions to realise their human rights but not receiving them because of budget constraints, distance from services, workforce shortages or rigid, inflexible approaches by institutions. To change those things, I support the principle of forming a national care service for Scotland to ensure that our citizens get the care that they are entitled to in order to live dignified lives and to ensure that, when public bodies do not meet their obligations, they are held to account.

The convener of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Clare Haughey, laid out well the huge amount of work that the committee undertook to scrutinise the principle of forming a national care service and thanked all who were involved. I echo those thanks. The committee’s report is lengthy and substantial, with the summary of recommendations alone running to 15 pages. I do not intend to go through them all in my speech.

There has been a lot of discussion about scrutiny. Seven committees have reviewed the bill in the 20 months since it was introduced, and the Scottish Government has met thousands of people to discuss the national care service. I am serious about my responsibilities as a parliamentarian and of course I think that that process is important, but I agree that we will let folk down if we allow ourselves to get too tangled up in procedural delay rather than get on with the important work of scrutiny and amendment of the Government’s bill.

Committee members now have the requested target operating model, and I understand that committee clerks and Scottish Government officials are in the process of discussing stage 2 amendments to ensure that sufficient time is built into the timetable to allow for scrutiny and further evidence to be taken. I know that every member of the committee will approach that task with the vigour and sincerity that it requires.

I acknowledge that the committee was not united in its conclusions and that the support of members who did not dissent was not unconditional. The report reflects that, and the debate has given us all an opportunity to expand on the personal positions that we hold.

There is a great deal of work to be done at stages 2 and 3 to ensure that the bill achieves its potential. For me, one of the key points relates to accountability. Supporters of a national care service, and perhaps particularly those with lived experience, will want to know exactly what will be different and that, as part of that, the national care service will have clear accountability and a fair escalation and redress process for when things do not go right. Should Parliament agree to the general principles of the bill this evening, I hope that we can all come together and make sure that these important reforms are the best that they can be for the people of Scotland.

Will the member take an intervention?

It does, thank you.

You were talking about how resource straddles health and education. I am not going to ask which local authority you are talking about—even though the convener is asking me to—but what do you think needs to change? After all, children’s services as a whole straddle health and education, so the obligations to support children should already be there, if you know what I mean. I struggle to understand how that can happen.

Good morning, and thank you for being with us. My questions are for our witness from the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, but I am happy to hear from anyone else.

We have heard about the importance of communication and its impact on attainment and behaviour, and in protecting against mental health issues. In your submission, you say that there has been a marked increase in presentations since the start of the pandemic and that, three years on, demand is still high. I was quite struck by the numbers in your submission, in which you say that, in May 2023, more than 6,000 children were waiting for speech and language therapy and that the average longest wait for initial contact and the average longest wait for individualised therapy were more than a year.

I have a number of questions. Has there been any easing of the pressure? Does what you say about the average longest wait for initial contact and the average longest wait for individualised therapy mean that a child is likely to have to wait for more than a year or that they are likely to have to wait for more than two years, if that makes sense? Do they have the contact and then have to wait another year for the individualised treatment?

I would also be interested to hear about the impact of those waits on development. In answering my colleague Michelle Thomson’s questions, you spoke about the importance of intervening and you said that it was possible to catch up, but it would be helpful for the committee to understand what the impact might be for a three or four-year-old, say, of having to wait for a year before receiving an intervention.

Committee members spent some time with children and young people and heard what was important to them. One thing that stuck out for me was how important, protective and empowering it is for them to have positive relationships. Communication is key to that.

You spoke about a whole-system approach and gave a helpful example of where that had been built in and how all the staff or people around a child could pick up that approach. What needs to change for us to have a whole-system approach? Is it the case that getting it right for children with communication challenges or difficulties is better for everybody? Is it good for all children, such that it is not just about a specialist service?

I will be brief, convener. I think that the interactions have been helpful and interesting.

Quite often, we think that the answer is to cram everything into initial teacher training, but clearly it is not. I recognise the model that Glenn Carter talked about, in which allied health professionals and members of children’s services teams are embedded in schools, but, in my experience, that sort of thing happens in a specific school. It is not happening across the board, even within a local authority area.

This might be a question for Irene Stove. Given the challenges in getting cover for teachers to undertake training and coaching on specific aspects, are there any examples of where work is done in the classroom—and perhaps even with the children and the teacher—so that it benefits everyone? I hope that that makes sense.