Will the member take an intervention?

In the chamber last week, I raised my concerns about the risks of the proposal for an English whisky geographical indication, and I asked how the Government is protecting the value of provenance in the Scottish food and drink industry. I welcomed the cabinet secretary’s reassurance that this Scottish Government is absolutely committed to supporting the sector and its incredible products. The sector, which is worth an incredible £15 billion, is one of the most successful sectors in Scotland, and food and drink are our biggest non-energy exports.

Scotland’s produce is renowned for its quality and its clear provenance, and the sector is driven forward by the resilience and innovation of our producers and wholesalers. We often talk about the industry’s importance to rural and island communities—indeed, many of my colleagues have mentioned that in this debate—but it reaches into every community in Scotland, including more urban areas such as my Rutherglen constituency.

Dunns Food & Drinks in Blantyre, which is a multi-award-winning wholesale supplier and one of Scotland’s most historic family businesses, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. In 1875, Joseph Dunn established a soft drinks business in the east end of Glasgow at a time when increasingly popular aerated waters were sold from horse-pulled carts. Dunns continued to expand throughout the 20th century, moving to Cambuslang in 1995 and then to Blantyre, where it remains. Today, Dunns Food & Drinks is a fourth-generation company with Joseph Dunn’s great-granddaughter, Julie Dunn, at the helm. It has a remarkably wide portfolio of high-quality products, which it delivers largely to the Scottish hospitality trade.

Dunns retains its connection to the soft drinks industry via its Currie’s brand—the home of many long-time family favourites. I am sure that my Ayrshire colleagues will be as interested as I was to learn that its red kola recipe remains largely the same after 100 years. The product has a particularly committed following in and around Ayrshire, where the company sells more than 5 million bottles a year.

Spiceway in Rutherglen is another independent, family-run food and drinks wholesale business in my constituency, and it has gone from strength to strength. Having started 22 years ago with a single vehicle and a 5,000 square foot warehouse, it now has facilities that spread over 40,000 square feet and a fleet of vehicles, and it supplies retailers, manufacturers, hotels, restaurants, takeaways and events across the country.

The Scottish wholesale sector provides a vital service, ensuring that our food and drink supply chain runs smoothly and supporting retail and hospitality businesses. The sector is undoubtedly crucial to the success of many food and drink businesses. To put it simply, our producers make their world-class products, retailers and service providers make them available to the public, and wholesalers are the crucial conduit. They have an important role to play in the growth of Scotland’s economy and the promotion of the Scottish food and drink industry.

In recognition of that, I am delighted that the Scottish Government has developed a strong collaborative partnership with the Scottish Wholesale Association and provides it with funding to help it to support our Scottish wholesalers and producers to increase the volume of local produce that is sold.

On the subject of the links between local produce and the wholesale industry, PK Foods, which is also based in Rutherglen, supplies Indian starters and snacks to more than 90 per cent of Scotland’s wholesale sector and counts many major chains among its retail customers. That company, which is another family business, has been in operation since 1997 and it prides itself on keeping its entire operation in house, from recipe development and the cooking of products from scratch right through to packing and delivery. It estimates that it produces around 10 tonnes of pakoras a week, so it is safe to say that, if anyone in the chamber has eaten pakoras recently, there is a very high chance that they were made in Rutherglen.

In recent years, all parts of the food and drink sector have shown much resilience in responding to the many challenges that they have faced. However, clear areas of concern remain, including the economic strain that has been caused by Brexit, inflationary pressures, increasing energy costs and wider geopolitical disruptions and threats. Using Brexit as just one example, I note that Scotland did not vote for that decision, but we have been left paying the price. UK households have paid £7 billion to cover the cost of post-Brexit trade barriers on food imports from the EU. That has pushed average household food costs up by £250 since the end of 2019. In addition, many Scottish suppliers are suffering from lower volumes of exports to the EU and significant and immediate gaps in labour.

The Scottish Government has taken every opportunity to engage with the UK Government and press it on the impact of Brexit and the UK’s immigration policies on Scotland’s food and drink sector. We have heard about some of that today.

During the general election campaign, we were told that Labour was open to talks about mitigating labour shortages to help businesses to reach their full potential. However, nothing has happened. Instead, the new UK Labour Government has chosen to hammer Scottish businesses via their national insurance contributions—a tax on jobs; has entertained the idea of redefining single malt whisky, to the detriment of the Scottish industry; and makes no argument to reverse Brexit, despite the fact one of its ministers has stated that 60 per cent of the impact of that is yet to materialise.

The best future for the Scottish economy hinges on Scotland being an independent member of the EU. In the meantime, I am confident that the Scottish Government will continue to do all that it can to support the Scottish food and drink sector and its incredible products.

I thank Daniel Johnson for taking my intervention. I hear what he is saying about what was said in the House of Commons, but we have heard a lot from Labour politicians in recent months. In the lead-up to the election, we heard about how they were going to cut fuel costs and energy bills, and those have gone up three times. Does he understand why the Scottish people do not trust what Labour says any more?

I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to learning lessons. Although I appreciate that time will be required to fully consider the recommendations, can the cabinet secretary advise how he will look to improve communication in the future?

I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests: I hold a bank nurse contract with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Will the member accept an intervention?

I will be brief. Does Brian Whittle realise that, by quoting developments in Estonia, he has just made the case for Scotland to be an independent country?

Does Carol Mochan recognise that quite a lot of work has already been done in the NHS to get systems to speak to each other? There is the EMIS system, whereby various clinicians can access each other’s records; there are the social work systems, which now allow healthcare staff to access those records; there is also the hospital electronic prescribing and medicines administration—HEPMA—system, which allows people throughout the hospital to see what a patient has been prescribed.

Can the minister set out the importance of the work that support staff undertake in our schools and how the recently passed budget is allowing local authorities to ensure that they are adequately resourced with support staff, whose experience can help schools meet the needs of our young people? It was, of course, a budget that Pam Duncan-Glancy and her Labour colleagues failed to vote for.

Today’s debate is timely, as this evening I am sponsoring an event on behalf of the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and the Digital Health and Care Innovation Centre on the Digital Lifelines Scotland project. Digital Lifelines is a cross-sector initiative that seeks to improve digital inclusion and to design digital solutions that better meet people’s needs, improve health outcomes for people who use drugs and reduce the risk of harm and death. To date, the project has supported around 4,500 people who are at risk of drug harm to be digitally included, enabling access to services such as digital harm reduction information and overdose detection apps. It is a fantastic example of the powerful manner in which digital inclusion and digital services can be enabled to support individuals whose health is at risk of harm, and of the positive change that such projects can facilitate not only for individuals but for services as a whole.

I am also delighted to have the opportunity to highlight the excellent work that is under way in my Rutherglen constituency at Blantyre LIFE, which is a multimillion-pound development that was supported by Scottish Government funding. The facilities on the campus include a 20-bed intermediate transitional care unit and 20 technology-enabled homes, all equipped with state-of-the-art telecare systems that are designed to support independent living. It is a fantastic example of how digital technology can be used to provide increasingly sophisticated health and social care and help to manage system pressures while improving experiences and outcomes and helping to reduce inequalities.

Some tech solutions can be the smart consumer devices that are found in many homes, such as voice-activated lights and gadgets, smart speakers, tablets and video doorbells. Others can be more specialised, including remote alert and fall-detection systems or sensors and pressure pads that enable a prompt response from carers if required. The Near Me video consulting services and Connect Me remote health monitoring services enable people to monitor and manage their own healthcare and be well connected with their healthcare professionals. Taken together, those digital solutions can be game changers in empowering people to live independent lives for longer in the heart of their own community, interacting with health and social care services when needed, while avoiding unnecessarily prolonged hospital stays.

Blantyre LIFE also has a technology-enabled care—TEC—zone, a demonstration area that was designed and built as a first-of-its-kind partnership with the Glasgow Science Centre. Visitors to the TEC zone can test out technology and chat to a specialist team to learn about solutions to support themselves and their loved ones at home. The zone also facilitates regular technology-enabled care training sessions for staff, both online and in person. In a taste of things to come, the campus worked in partnership with the National Robotarium to welcome ARI, an early social robot prototype that aims to assist with post-injury recovery. That is cutting-edge technology, right at the heart of my community.

Last month, Blantyre LIFE celebrated supporting 200 people through re-enablement in its first year of operation. It has established a strong reputation for its pioneering work, welcoming several fact-finding missions from overseas as well as from across Scotland and the rest of the UK to see how technology is being used to make day-to-day living easier and safer.

Key components of Blantyre LIFE’s on-going work are the way in which it delivers services and the dedicated staff who work there. Blantyre LIFE has embraced the use of technology in its own facilities, and it has shared its learning and championed technology use with other providers and wider communities.

In a similar way, a crucial arm of the Digital Lifelines Scotland project is dedicated to upskilling staff and volunteers and providing support and funding to other organisations to develop digital tools and support.

All of that is key to our ultimate shared goal of enabling and empowering people to live more independent, longer and healthier lives.

I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests. I hold a bank nurse contract with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde.

Will the minister advise Parliament of the continued importance of the Scottish empty homes partnership in ensuring that unoccupied and void properties are brought back into use in the greater Glasgow area and across Scotland?