Chamber and committees

As a quick supplementary question to the witnesses who are in the room, do you recognise what has just been said in your sports? Do you think that the processes that are in place are robust enough for women and girls who are moving towards becoming elite athletes or are currently participating as elite athletes?

I was interested in what you said about an underlying current of harassment, sexism or what is interpreted as “banter”, and how no one would report it. What were the barriers to some of those women and young girls reporting how they were made to feel or what was said in their presence?

Perhaps we can bring in the remote participants, because I am conscious that we have not heard a great deal from them. Lee Craigie, do you want to kick off with a view from cycling?

Thank you, Lee. I want to turn to Priyanaz Chatterji, as she is in a more female environment with her team mates.

I declare that I am a mental health nurse and am currently registered with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests. Supporting mental health and the wellbeing of children and young people is crucial to achieving the Government’s ambition to make Scotland the best place in the world to grow up in. What will the Government do to ensure that children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing are supported?

I, too, thank Christine Grahame for initiating this debate, and I thank members across the chamber for their contributions. The debate has enabled us as a Parliament to congratulate St Andrew’s Children’s Society on marking its centenary last year. I welcome the opportunity to celebrate that significant milestone and to acknowledge all those who have played a part in the society’s important work.

As other speakers have said, there was a parliamentary reception for the society earlier this year. It gave me a chance to offer my congratulations in person and to hear at first hand the experiences of many of those who are involved with the society. The reception was a profoundly moving event, at which a number of people shared personal testimonies about their adoption journeys. We heard from an adoptee who is now a young adult and has become an adoption panel member. We heard from the first single gay man to adopt a child in Scotland, and we heard from a couple who had adopted a sibling group, as Christine Grahame mentioned in her speech. Those people’s testimonies and the stories that they shared illustrate the fantastic support that the society has provided for so many years.

However, as Christine Grahame highlights in her motion, the celebration of Scotland’s oldest adoption and fostering agency does not just enable us to pay credit to the staff and volunteers who have supported the society over the past 100 years. Importantly, it also enables us to pay credit to adoptive parents and foster carers. I put on the record my sincere thanks to all care givers, including adoptive families, foster carers and practitioners who work in the sectors. We absolutely recognise the vital part that they play in providing nurturing homes, support and love for children and young people across Scotland, and we value the positive difference that that can make to those young people’s lives.

Today’s debate also enables us to reflect on our work to keep the Promise by 2030. It is vital that the Scottish Government leads from the front to ensure that all care-experienced children and young people are supported to grow up loved, safe and respected.

We stated our commitment to do that in the Promise implementation plan, “Keeping The Promise to our children, young people and families”, which was published last year and in which we outlined our vision for delivering a good childhood to ensure that

“Every child lives in a safe and loving home where families are given support to overcome difficulties and stay together.”

Our work to keep the Promise includes the whole family wellbeing programme of activity, with investment of £500 million over this parliamentary session. That will transform services to ensure that families, including adoptive and foster families, can access the support that they need, when and where they need it. We have allocated £50 million in this year’s budget, including the provision of £32 million directly to children’s services planning partnerships, to enable work at a local level.

We have also provided more than £350,000 in 2022-23 to third sector organisations that provide support at a national level for those who are affected by adoption, including children, young people, families and adult adoptees. That includes: funding for adoption week; a national helpline and support for adoptive families, to minimise adoption breakdowns; the therapeutic education support service in adoption programme—TESSA—which provides therapeutic input for adoptive families; services for professionals and practitioners in the adoption sector; and the adoption contact register for Scotland, which is hosted by Birthlink, to facilitate contact between adoptees, birth parents and birth relatives. We also fund Scotland’s adoption register, to support finding a family as easily as possible for children who are identified as needing adoptive placements.

As the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon mentioned in the national apology that she made last week, we are also funding a scoping study to look at what support is required for those who have been affected by historical adoption practices, including adult adoptees.

St Andrew’s Children’s Society’s work extends beyond adoption, so I will briefly also mention foster care. We are absolutely committed to helping foster carers. We provide a range of specific support, which includes more than £150,000 to the Fostering Network in Scotland this year. That funding supports the Fosterline Scotland service, training for foster carers, the raising of the profile of foster caring and the encouragement of the recruitment of new carers.

I reassure the Parliament that delivering a Scottish recommended allowance for foster and kinship carers as soon as possible is a priority for me. That has taken far longer than we originally anticipated, and I recognise the frustrations of care givers and other stakeholders. I remain committed to working constructively with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to deliver it as quickly as possible; we are exploring all available options for doing that.

More broadly, the foundation of all our work is in getting it right for every child—GIRFEC, as it is known—which is the Scottish Government’s commitment to ensuring that all children and young people and their families are offered the right support at the right time, so that every child and young person in Scotland can reach their full potential. Through the national trauma training programme, we continue work to ensure that our workforce is trauma informed, recognises the impact of adverse experiences on children and provides the right support to ensure that no further harm is done.

Although today’s debate is an important opportunity to reflect on our collective work to keep the Promise, I return to the celebration that is at the heart of the motion and again extend my congratulations to St Andrew’s Children’s Society on its centenary.

In 2023-24, we will invest around £1 billion in the delivery of our funded early learning and childcare offer. Scotland is the only part of the United Kingdom to offer 1,140 hours a year of funded early learning and childcare to all three and four-year-olds and eligible two-year-olds, and we are progressing plans to expand the childcare offer in Scotland by expanding free early learning and childcare to one and two-year-olds starting in this parliamentary session with children who will benefit most. We have already started to design and deliver funded school-age childcare services in targeted communities across Scotland as part of our commitment to building a system of school-age childcare and to fund it for those on lowest incomes.

Yes, and, as Joe FitzPatrick says, Scotland already has the most generous childcare offer anywhere in the UK, and we believe that all children should be entitled to high-quality funded early learning and childcare regardless of the working status of their parents or carers. Under UK Government plans, a child’s access to funded childcare will depend on the working status of their parent or carer.

Of course, in an independent Scotland, the Scottish Government would have access to the full range of levers through tax and welfare assistance to give children the best possible start in life and plan for their needs holistically.

As I said in my initial answer, we are progressing our plans to expand the childcare offer in Scotland to one and two-year-olds starting in this parliamentary session with the children who will benefit most, and it was good to see that the UK Government has finally caught up with the importance of investing in childcare, which is critically important to children and families and essential to our economy.

Ministers will look carefully at what consequential funding is available to Scotland as a result of the budget. My understanding is that it will be very limited—only around £20 million. Of course, it will be for the new First Minister to set out details of their plans for any further investment in childcare in this parliamentary session.