Chamber and committees

I do. Given my interest in food standards and how we are altering and changing them as we engage in things such as novel foods, I am interested in paragraph 9 of the policy note, which is about monitoring. It says:

“Food Standards Scotland will work with Local Authorities where problems or suspected infringements of the legislation arise.”

I am interested to know—we might need to write to Food Standards Scotland about this—how Food Standards Scotland will work with local authorities. How will we monitor that? I ask that out of general interest.

Thanks.

As the minister will know, I have been working with her and with her predecessor to tackle drug and alcohol-related stigma, which affects individuals, families and communities, and which can have a negative effect on recovery. I welcome the fact that NHS Education for Scotland now has specific information for health and social care staff on Turas, the NES learning platform, but although there is education around stigma, there is a wee bit of room to go further. NHS Inform has some great drug and alcohol-related stigma information in a short, comprehensive format.

Would the minister consider working with NES to put that information into a mandatory module on the Turas platform for all health and social care staff, not only those who work in drug and alcohol addiction services, so that we can truly help to combat drug and alcohol-related stigma?

Alexander Stewart mentioned the chamber desk team, which is a small team. Is it burdensome for the team members to manage motions? There are a lot of motions—some people would have certain things to say about motions that they might not find as valuable; we have covered that already—and I am interested in finding out whether that team feels burdened by having to process so many of them.

Like Stephen Kerr, I sympathise with what Graeme Dey’s letter is about, but, for people who live rurally and remotely from this place, a motion is really beneficial, because they feel that they are being heard and that their work is valued, whether that is in relation to a charity or to local action that is being taken forward. We all have motions related to our cross-party groups as well. For example, today, I have a motion about world asthma day, and there will be a debate in the chamber about it. I know that not all motions are for debate—some are just to recognise or to congratulate something. Therefore, I would be keen to monitor the situation and see how we get on, but I would not like to prescribe to colleagues whether they should write motions in a particular way.

I welcome today’s debate on the Scottish Parliament’s gender-sensitive audit and the work of the Presiding Officer and the Parliament officials who have been involved in the process. They should be commended for producing the audit and for the huge amount of background work that has gone into it. I also thank all members who are involved in the gender-sensitive Parliament advisory group for their input and experience.

I am particularly interested in the audit, as I am the only female member of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee at this time. It has been interesting to look at its findings. For me, achieving a gender-sensitive Parliament is more about making sure that there is gender sensitivity than it is about ensuring that there is equality.

As the audit states:

“Parliaments are unique institutions. They are both places of democracy and places of work. To deliver the best outcomes for both under-represented groups and for society as a whole, women must be fairly represented, be able to fully participate in parliament, and be centrally involved in decision-making”.

It continues:

“Scotland has a record that bears international comparison: arguments for equal representation were central to wider debates over devolution and embedded into institutional ‘blueprints’ for the new Scottish Parliament”.

That included policies to ensure “family friendliness”. I also like the use of the phrase “life friendly” in the audit. This afternoon, we have already made progress: we have moved forward with our use of language to be more inclusive and to support an approach that is not just family friendly but life friendly.

We need to make sure that we enshrine a commitment to equal opportunities and to mainstream equality, including gender equality, across all areas of work. Of the 129 MSPs who were elected to the Parliament for the first time in 1999, 48 were women, which equated to 37 per cent, but, as Rhoda Grant rightly said, women now represent 45 per cent of Scotland’s 129 MSPs.

As we started the debate, I was checking the balance of our members of the Scottish Youth Parliament. Of the members who chose to say how they wanted to be identified, 54.89 per cent said that they were female versus 42.86 per cent who said that they were male. There are other interesting MSYP stats, such as LGBT+ and carer stats. We need to be cognisant of those figures for our MSYPs—both male and female—and we need to make sure that we support them in their future progress and journey in this political environment that we aim to make more gender sensitive.

Progress is being made, but the record number of women winning seats in this parliamentary session did not happen by accident or chance. During the 2021 campaign, growing pressure on political parties led to many of them introducing a range of measures to increase women’s participation in parliamentary democracy. As members know, those measures included all-women shortlists for constituency election contests and zipped lists for regional list elections, in which female and male candidates were alternated.

From the 2021 outcome, it seems that those measures have worked. Indeed, as the audit highlights, they have worked in previous elections both in the UK Parliament and in Parliaments around the globe, including in Australia.

I found the findings really interesting, especially as much of the evidence indicates that shortlists in a range of areas such as disability and ethnicity—and, in particular, gender—support people, including many women, to be empowered to consider standing for election.

I am especially interested in recommendations 13 and 14 in the report. Recommendation 14 states that the SPPA Committee should

“consider these statistics (from Recommendation 13) biennially”—

so, every other year—

“and develop new rules and/or conventions to rebalance participation, where there is evidence of inequalities of participation.”

Roz McCall highlighted that in detail in her contribution, and I thank her for doing so.

As is covered in recommendation 13, we need to look at potentially publishing intersectional data on gender participation in chamber debates; questions by type, including First Minister’s questions and statements; and interventions. The reason for doing so is that it could potentially enable us to create new rules and conventions to rebalance participation where there is evidence of inequality—for example, in particular areas such as the economy or science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I know that my colleague Michelle Thomson is vocal on economic and financial issues; she and I are on the cross-party group on the USA together. That gives us a voice that ensures that we are represented around the globe.

Rather unsurprisingly, the audit highlighted issues to do with social media. I will pick up on that issue, as other members have done. We know that there has been a massive impact from interactions on social media. At the Presiding Officer’s meeting that we attended last week, I heard Meghan Gallacher describe what has happened to her—it was absolutely shocking. We have had reports of women parliamentarians around the globe being subjected to horrific abuse on social media, including, sometimes, from other parliamentarians.

Social media can be quite toxic. I would like social media to be a valuable tool that we use to access reports, research and data—I used it during the Covid pandemic to find out so much information about what was happening around the globe. I would rather that social media was a positive thing rather than the toxic influence that it is just now. Indeed, the former First Minister recently said that social media was a significant barrier for women pursuing a political career.

Recommendation 28 in the audit report says:

“The SPCB, working with the Gender Sensitive Parliament Advisory Group, and a group of MSPs from ... under-represented ... groups ... should update”

the Parliament’s continuous professional development provisions and potentially extend that work to explore a social media policy.

I am a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, in which the Governments and assemblies of these islands work together. I have written to the BIPA clerks to pursue the question of whether BIPA has done any inquiry work into social media policy. I know that the Welsh Parliament already has a social media policy as part of the standards that it works towards.

I have given a commitment to the convener of the SPPA Committee to share any response that I get from the BIPA clerks, and I will also write to the co-chairs, Karen Bradley MP and Brendan Smith TD, to find out whether they would like to undertake any further inquiry on the matter.

I am sure that my time is a bit out, Presiding Officer—you have been very generous with every member this afternoon. In closing, I simply state that equality for women is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s vision for an equal Scotland, and in Parliament we need to see the same approaches to look at achieving gender equality and gender sensitivity in the way that we work.

I look forward to working with colleagues across the chamber to help to make this place kinder. I absolutely agree with Monica Lennon’s intervention in that regard, and I look forward to hearing the closing speeches this afternoon.

I know that you are describing experiences in this place. Do you agree with me that it is worrying to hear what is happening in other places, such as Westminster, where female colleagues are mooed at across the chamber? That would worry me.

I welcome the opportunity to lead this important debate, which recognises that world asthma day took place on 2 May 2023. This year, the theme was asthma care for all. I thank members from across the chamber—in fact, from all parties—who supported my motion and so allowed the debate to go ahead. I also thank Asthma and Lung UK Scotland, and its policy officer Gareth Brown, for its briefing and for all that it does to support people with an asthma diagnosis and their families.

In particular, as the co-convener, with my colleague Alexander Stewart, of the Parliament’s cross-party group on lung health, I thank everyone who is involved in that group. In the past, we have carried out a lot of work on asthma, and the input from clinicians, asthma support groups and people living with asthma, such as Asthma and Lung UK ambassador Olivia Fulton, has been absolutely invaluable. It is worth noting that Olivia, who thought that she could never participate in sport because she has quite severe asthma, is now playing wheelchair rugby and loving it.

As the wording of my motion indicates, world asthma day is organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma, which is a World Health Organization collaborative that was founded in 1993.

Asthma is a very common long-term lung condition. In the United Kingdom, 5.4 million people have it—that is one in every 12 adults and one in every 11 children. In Scotland, 360,000 adults and around 72,000 children have an asthma diagnosis.

People with asthma often have sensitive, inflamed airways. Its symptoms can come and go. Sometimes people may not have symptoms for weeks or months at a time. However, asthma needs to be treated every day, even if sufferers feel well, to lower their risk of symptoms and asthma exacerbations and attacks.

The most common symptoms of asthma are coughing, wheezing—a whistling sound when the sufferer breathes—breathlessness and chest tightness. When, as a nurse, I looked after people with asthma, they would sometimes describe it as feeling as though a brick was weighing down on their chest, making it difficult for them to breathe. If someone experiences one or more of those symptoms it could mean that they have asthma, and they should speak to their general practitioner as soon as possible. There are nurse specialists in asthma care and respiratory medicine in many of our GP practices, so there are great experts out there.

There are lots of things that can make asthma worse, but not everyone will be affected by the same things. If people finding out what sets off their symptoms, whether it is colds and viruses, pets, pollen, pollution, house dust mites or stress, they can work out ways to avoid the triggers if possible.

There are certain stages in people’s lives that might affect their asthma, too. For example, some women find that hormonal changes at puberty, pregnancy or menopause can affect their asthma, and research is under way that is looking at the issues that face women with asthma and whether asthma is exacerbated by those changes.

The best way that someone can cope with their asthma triggers is to always take their preventer inhaler as prescribed, even when they feel well.

How serious asthma is varies from person to person. There are different types of asthma, too. Someone with severe asthma, which affects around 5 per cent of all people with asthma, can have symptoms most of the time and find them really hard to control, but we now have new biological medicines that target the processes that cause inflammation, and those meds are helping. Asthma can kill. It is serious and it needs continued action.

As my motion states, Asthma and Lung UK Scotland carried out a survey that showed that only 25.4 per cent of people with asthma said that they received all the elements of basic asthma care. Part of how we can address that issue is through ensuring that people have their own personalised asthma action plans and that those plans are being reviewed at appropriate times.

Correct inhaler technique is key, and up to a third of people with asthma are not using their inhaler correctly. That was noted when we did some research ahead of the debate. People with asthma who are unable to use their inhaler correctly are at an increased risk of poor asthma control, potentially resulting in an attack, which may lead to the person being hospitalised.

My go-to person, Garry McDonald, who is a community pharmacist who specialises in asthma, said in a conversation with me that most people can have their inhaler technique checked at their community pharmacy and that community pharmacists are often the only healthcare professionals that people with asthma see.

Recently, when I hosted a lung health event in Parliament to mark that the respiratory care action plan has been running for two years, I met Paul Wilson, who has had many, many hospital admissions for treatment and resuscitation for his poorly controlled asthma. His asthma improved when his inhaler technique improved, and he has had zero further hospital admissions since he had his inhaler technique check and then had his personalised asthma action plan put in place. He is now giving back to the national health service by training to be a nurse, and I hope that Paul will be a respiratory nurse. That is a good news story that we have heard in relation to the work that community pharmacists can do in supporting people.

Inhaler technique is part of the personalised action plan for people’s asthma control. I would be interested to learn how those inhaler techniques and personalised asthma action plans are being communicated to patients, as they are both absolutely necessary, and whether the Scottish Government would consider further awareness-raising efforts in order to support that.

Following lobbying from the cross-party group, the Scottish Government launched the respiratory care action plan 2021 to 2026, which I just mentioned. The plan sets out the vision for driving improvement in the prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment and support of people living with respiratory conditions in Scotland. It identifies five key priorities for respiratory care and is intended to be an enabling document that is driving continuous improvement.

One of the key areas that the plan focuses on is asthma, and it mentions pulmonary rehabilitation. The evidence shows that PR has beneficial effects in patients with asthma, at any stage of the disease, improving exercise capacity, asthma control and quality of life, and reducing wheezing, anxiety, depression, and bronchial inflammation. However, many patients report waiting lists of up to 18 months to access PR referrals and appointments. I ask the minister whether targeted support could be considered to improve waiting times for pulmonary rehabilitation and asthma referrals, as requested by Asthma and Lung UK Scotland.

There is a link between asthma and inequality. We know that people from the most deprived areas of Scotland are much more likely to receive an asthma diagnosis. Managing a variable lifelong condition with complex treatments such as inhalers is hard enough. Managing asthma while juggling multiple jobs, family responsibilities and financial pressures is even harder. I welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling health inequalities, but it is important to ensure that good-quality housing, sound state welfare support and good air quality are key components of achieving health equality.

Asthma is a serious health condition. We need to ensure that people are aware of its signs and symptoms and that we are taking all the action possible to support people who have been diagnosed. We must ensure that there is the right inhaler for the right person, as that is one of the ways forward. Importantly, we need people to know how to use their inhalers properly.

I look forward to hearing other members’ contributions.

My sister is a respiratory nurse consultant. During the pandemic, pulmonary rehab was moved online—that is one of the innovations that has been taken forward. Does Jackie Baillie welcome the fact that PR can now be delivered in various forms—face to face and online?

Specifically, is the optimal way forward the introduction of a licensing scheme?