Chamber and committees

Okay. We have six commissioners and an ombudsman. With the potential for future commissioners, does the Scottish Government need to look at how we can ensure that a more strategic approach is taken to resourcing and establishing additional commissioners? Is work being done now to look at that?

Brian Whittle and I were on the Health and Sport Committee together in the previous parliamentary session. Data and data sharing were a big issue. Does he think that the work that Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland is doing needs to be connected directly with, for instance, the data platforms for learning for GP practices or GPs?

I also thank Jackie Baillie for bringing the debate to the chamber.

We have heard more and more from Covid-19 survivors that the impact of the virus lasts beyond the first few weeks of immediate symptoms.

As members have said, for some patients, Covid-19 has a long-term and far-reaching impact on their daily lives, impacting them physically, emotionally and cognitively. Post-Covid syndrome, which is now referred to as long Covid, presents a variety of symptoms. They range from physical symptoms such as pulmonary and cardiovascular symptoms as well as systemic issues such as extreme fatigue, to neuropsychological symptoms that impact cognition, speech, memory and emotion.

Members have described the condition already. As I am one of the final speakers in the debate, it is hard to come up with or reflect something different. However, I am interested in following up on the point that the varied symptoms demonstrate that long Covid is complex, and much is still not known about how Covid-19 will affect people over time.

Research is on-going and must be supported. Stuart McMillan mentioned research that is being undertaken. I have information on research from the Covid in Scotland study, which involved a large cohort of people. The study involved 33,281 cases of laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as 62,957 individuals who had never been infected. The study looked at a wide range of people who have had Covid and some who have not had it. The results are interesting, although I will not repeat all the information that I have in front of me.

It is crucial that we think about the real-life experiences of people living with long Covid and that we involve those people. We need to continue to use that experience to inform the Scottish Government’s approach to support, and we need to look at where support is most required.

I have read about the work that Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland is doing with NHS Lothian, Pogo Digital Healthcare and patients with long Covid to develop a pathway for long Covid. The pathway aims to give patients access to the tailored talks digital platform and to get advice from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland’s long Covid support service. The work involves engaging with people to hear about their symptoms. People self-assess their symptoms, which allows them to be directed to particular specialists—as we have heard, different specialists deal with different symptoms.

It is interesting to pick up on what the Office for National Statistics has said about the prevalence of long Covid. In social care, 85 per cent of the workforce are female; in education, 60 per cent of the workforce are female; and in healthcare, the figure is 76 per cent. Therefore, long Covid impacts women more in those areas. Obviously, the condition presents challenges for women’s participation in the labour market, particularly as employer responses to long Covid have perhaps not been particularly supportive of women in the workforce. In a Trades Union Congress study, 52 per cent of respondents in the female workforce said that they had experienced some type of discrimination or disadvantage due to long Covid.

I am interested in whether the minister is pursuing any specific long Covid pathways into treatment for women and whether any further analysis could be done to look at the gender impact.

I will stop there, although this is a wide-ranging subject and I could easily have gone on for longer.

To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking, with lambing season about to begin, to support farmers to keep livestock safe, including in relation to promoting responsible countryside access. (S6O-01994)

As well as facing high costs due to the cost of living crisis and Brexit, farmers are still being financially and emotionally impacted by attacks on their livestock by out-of-control dogs. As the lambing season begins, will the cabinet secretary join me in again encouraging everyone, when enjoying Scotland’s beautiful countryside, to do it responsibly and follow the Scottish outdoor access code, keeping dogs under close control to prevent livestock from coming to harm?

I was at BIPA as well and was struck by the words of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition and how effective it had been in promoting sustainable peace in Ireland.

Does Pauline McNeill agree that we need to highlight the work of the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition and the importance of women being engaged and included in peace processes in Ireland and conflict zones anywhere in the world, and that we need to value the contribution that women can make to lasting and sustainable peace across the world?

I congratulate my colleague Rona Mackay on bringing the debate to the chamber and on her continued work to promote a fair and progressive approach to prison policy and to Scotland’s justice system, and I thank the Families Outside charity for all the work that it does to support families who are impacted by imprisonment.

I will touch on the Families Outside report and the work of Prisoners Abroad, which is a charity that supports the families of people from the UK who are serving sentences in other countries.

The evidence is clear that the cost to families of imprisonment is stark. I will give a few key statistics relating to families in Scotland. For prisoners who are held on remand, the average distance travelled per visit by families was 74 miles and the cost was £70 a month. Some £60 per month was spent on food snacks on visits, £100 was put into the personal account, and £55 was spent on other costs.

Rona Mackay mentioned the food costs on visits. It costs £1 to purchase a Galaxy chocolate bar from the vending machine in the Parliament, for example, but it costs £2.50 for the same chocolate bar in Polmont, and the profits go directly to the private vending machine company. Why are the prices in the Parliament and prisons so different? I was interested to find out that fact. Are the prices so different simply because there is a captive audience in prison? Is that simply for pure profit?

If a person is sentenced, the costs increase significantly compared with the remand costs. Rona Mackay outlined some of those costs. If a person was serving six years in prison—that was the average that was looked at—the family travelled twice a month to visit and the average distance was 106 miles for a return journey. That cost £77 a month for travel, £36 for supplemental snacks, £88 into the personal account, and £75 for other costs. The costs are therefore pretty significant. The median total spent per month was £180, or around a third of the household income, and £2,160 a year was spent supporting the person in prison. I know that Rona Mackay has already mentioned that, but it is worth reiterating. The financial costs are significant. Of course, we also need to reflect on the emotional impacts of having a family member in prison.

There are clear ways to improve things. Families Outside reported that it would like toiletries, prison clothes and footwear to be free, telephone calls and canteen prices to be cheaper, and prisoner wages to be improved for the in-person work that is carried out. That would allow people in prison to be more self-sufficient and not totally reliant on their families, many of whom are already impacted by increased costs and, of course, the cost of living crisis. As the Scottish Government continues to make Scotland’s justice system a more progressive system that focuses on prevention, education and rehabilitation, I ask the minister to seriously consider those recommendations and to outline the Scottish Government’s position on them.

Finally, I turn to families who have family members in prison abroad. There are 750 people from the UK in prison abroad, 196 of whom are being held in the United States in federal or state prisons. The cost to families of visiting family members abroad—this applies to visits to family members in prison in the US, in particular—is in excess of £2,500 per visit. That includes air fare, insurance, car hire, accommodation and food, as well as the cost of paying for additional snacks, toiletries and use of the canteen. Therefore, the same issues of additional cost that we are seeing in Scotland are reflected in the USA.

Prisoners Abroad, the UK-wide charity that supports families of prisoners abroad, has called on the UK Foreign Office to consider the feasibility of creating a grant scheme that would allow family members to visit family in prisons abroad. I ask the minister whether such a scheme could be considered or whether she could raise the issue with the UK Government, as we know how vital it is for the welfare of families and for people in prison to maintain family contact.

There are many complex issues associated with prisoners and families; I have highlighted only a few. I look forward to the minister’s response.

My understanding is that some restaurants are making non-caloried menus available for people if they book a table, for instance. That might help to counter the issue of calories on menus.

I welcome the debate, which allows us again to raise awareness of eating disorders. I congratulate Kenneth Gibson on securing it. He highlighted well the issues that surround eating disorders. Around 1.25 million people across the UK and about one in 50 people in Scotland live with an eating disorder, and the number increased during the Covid-19 pandemic. The pandemic exacerbated the situation, with a reported increase of 86 per cent in referrals to specialists between 2019 and 2020.

There is much discussion about what causes a person to have an eating disorder. Eating disorders affect people of any age, gender, ethnicity or background. Research has shown that there is a link between eating disorders and depression, low confidence and low self-esteem. It is important to remember that such disorders are not all about food but are about feelings as well. One of Beat’s key asks concerns social media. We know that social media can be the cause of eating disorders, and we need to ensure that people use it safely. I thank Beat for the work that it is doing on that, and I encourage everyone to look at its website, which is easy to navigate and comprehensive.

In March 2021, the Scottish Government completed a national eating disorder services review. The review’s report includes a total of 15 ambitious recommendations that are focused on ensuring that everyone affected by eating disorders receives timely and appropriate care and support. The recommendations include establishing a lived experience panel; better co-ordination of national activity and data collection; ensuring the national availability of self-help resources, which should be available to everyone at any stage in life; and a focus on early diagnosis with the aim of prevention. It is welcome that an implementation group was set up to review timescales and the cost of implementing the recommendations and that three sub-groups have been created within the implementation group. I would welcome an update from the minister on the implementation of those recommendations.

I contacted the dietetic team from NHS Dumfries and Galloway. The team has a dietician who works specifically with patients who are living with, or at risk of developing, an eating disorder. I heard that, because of the rurality of Dumfries and Galloway, some people who are at risk of developing an eating disorder might not be picked up as early or as easily as they could be and might be reluctant to access support because of the travel involved in attending appointments. Although that situation has improved with virtual appointments, there still exists an issue for people in rural areas with accessing eating disorder support services, so I ask the Minister for Mental Wellbeing and Social Care to ensure that rural areas are included in the approach moving forward.

I welcome the Scottish Government’s investment of £120 million in the mental health recovery and renewal fund with a focus on improved support for mental health in primary care settings and enhanced community support. I also welcome its increased investment in Beat, which has received more than £400,000 from the Scottish Government to support carers, adults and young people across Scotland who are coping with eating disorders. The funding follows the national review of eating disorder services in Scotland, which generated recommendations for treatment across the country. Those recommendations will be taken forward by the eating disorder services implementation group, which is responsible for planning and delivering improvements to eating disorder services.

I am conscious of the time, and I know that there are other speakers. I welcome the debate and thank the minister for the work that has been done so far and Kenneth Gibson for bringing the debate to the chamber.

Does the way that we measure and gather data need to be flexible because of the technology and because some products are not yet licensed for emissions reduction in dairy cattle? Am I right to say that everything has to be flexible and must be allowed to evolve as the science, technology and support enable emissions reduction by farmers?