Chamber and committees

I will direct my question to Mike Flynn. I assume that, when a licence is applied for, it is to ensure responsible predator control. Obviously, there needs to be flexibility. We have heard about capercaillie management; fox management is also needed in, for example, the lambing season. Do you agree that licensing should be flexible and depend on what control is sought so that we can help to manage predators responsibly?

I am wondering whether that is part of the evidence that we took for the committee’s report. I thought that we were supposed to be speaking about the report.

Carol Mochan has been talking about tackling poverty, and supporting people’s salaries is obviously one of way of doing that. Does she agree that one way in which we could tackle poverty would be to fully devolve employment law to this country?

As a member of the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, I welcome the opportunity to speak about how important it is that we value the health and wellbeing of our young people in Scotland. I thank colleagues and everyone who contributed to the inquiry.

Our committee’s report speired, or inquired, into a range of issues and covered a number of areas. It is worth reading the report, but I will focus my contribution specifically on three of the areas that I have been actively involved in: supporting folk experiencing eating disorders, health and wellbeing support for young people in school and education settings, and poverty.

First, a number of submissions to our inquiry highlighted a recent rise in demand from children and young people who need support for eating disorders. The pandemic has exacerbated that trend, with a reported increase of 86 per cent in referrals to specialists between 2019 and 2021.

People with eating disorders typically develop severe physical health problems, and overall quality of life has been estimated to be as low as in symptomatic coronary heart disease or severe depression. Access to the right treatment and support is life changing, and early intervention provides the best chance of recovery.

In our report, we call on the Scottish Government to outline what it is doing to respond to the recommendations of the national review of eating disorder services, including details of any funding that it is putting in place to support their implementation.

I welcome that the minister outlined the Government’s response to the recommendations during a members’ business debate, which I led, on eating disorders awareness week. He outlined that the Scottish Government’s

“transition and recovery plan ... is backed by the £120 million recovery and renewal fund, which will help to transform”

eating disorder

“services, with a renewed focus on prevention and early intervention.”

Additionally, the Government announced

“£5 million to implement the recommendations of the national eating disorders review”—[Official Report, 1 March 2022; c 98.]

as well as “more than £400,000” of funding for the fantastic charity Beat to enable it to continue its vital work.

I welcome those steps and ask the minister, in closing, for a commitment that the Government will continue its support to Beat.

I turn to health and wellbeing support in schools. In our report, the committee recognises the central and pivotal role that schools have to play in co-ordinating a whole-systems approach to supporting the health and wellbeing of children and young people. Counselling can help children and young people to explore, understand and overcome issues in their lives to improve resilience.

In Dumfries and Galloway in my South Scotland region, the council has received national recognition, including from Young Scot, for its innovative approach to school counsellors. The local authority has provided the youth enquiry team with access to counselling education, destigmatising the language around the word “counsellor” and encouraging more young people to access support, should they require it. I welcome that action and encourage other local authorities to look at the example of Dumfries and Galloway Council, which seeks to improve services with the aim of achieving the best possible health and wellbeing outcomes for our young people. I will follow up the outcomes and the measurements of the goals and aims of that adopted approach.

Against a backdrop of a cost of living crisis, the pandemic, Brexit and harmful UK Government welfare policies, the Scottish Government continues to mitigate cruel Tory cuts that harm our young people. We know that living in poverty can have severe impacts on health and wellbeing, which is why tackling child poverty, as our committee asked for, is rightly a national mission for the Government. Indeed, in its report, our committee notes that it

“has been struck by the volume of evidence it has received showing the overriding impact poverty and deprivation has on the health and wellbeing of children and young people.”

I jalouse that the Opposition will nae like tae hear this, but it has to be accepted that this poverty is largely down to the UK Government, as Mary Glasgow from Children 1st indicated during the inquiry. Despite the rapidly rising living costs under the Tories’ watch, the UK Government ploughed ahead with a cruel £20 cut to universal credit, which pushed 60,000 Scots, including 20,000 children, into poverty.

Scottish Government analysis found that reversing key UK Government welfare reforms that have been made since 2015 would bring around 70,000 people in Scotland out of poverty, including 30,000 children, in 2023-24. The total cost of reversing those reforms, including the two-child limit, the removal of the family element, the benefit freeze, and changes to universal credit work allowances and the taper rate, would be around £780 million per annum.

Presiding Officer, “mitigate, mitigate, mitigate” are the words that my colleague Christine Grahame used in another recent debate. She said that she was fed up with talking about mitigating Tory policy and I am also fed up with mitigating Tory policy. It is time that the announcement about the independence referendum, the move towards it and the full fiscal autonomy that Stephanie Callaghan talked about in her contribution were taken forward, along with the actions that will support the mental health and wellbeing of all our citizens in Scotland including our children and young people.

Will the member take an intervention?

Thanks—it is a very short question for Karen Lewis. Is the rent deposit guarantee scheme only a Hub Dumfries and Galloway thing, or are there third sector equivalents elsewhere in Scotland that have it as well?

Good morning, everybody, including Karen Lewis and Sharon Wright, who are online. A lot of questions have already been answered, and I was struck by what Sharon said about poverty being the cause of health inequality, universal credit not working and about the removal of the £20 uplift that was provided during Covid. That is 80 quid a month. You used really strong language and words such as “punitive”, “cruel” and “unfair”, and I am sure that even hearing that is demoralising for lots of people. That was just a comment, but I welcome any thoughts on what we need to do to change the situation, such as through a minimum income guarantee or universal basic income, and what we might need to do to progress such ideas, as witnessed in other countries.

I have a local question for Karen. I visited the Hub a couple of weeks ago and witnessed for myself the work that is being done there. Karen should be commended; she certainly helped with my knowledge. I would appreciate further detail on the barriers for people who apply for whatever support they can get.

Independence will allow all decisions, in every aspect of Scottish society, to be put in the hands of the democratically elected Scottish Parliament. Can the cabinet secretary reaffirm that that will allow this Parliament to reverse the harms that have been created by consecutive UK Governments and to build a fairer and more inclusive Scotland that values human rights as well as the wellbeing of our citizens? Will he also reaffirm that no Government should deny the people of Scotland the right to take that decision?

George Eustice has written to the First Minister about the Scottish Government’s position on the new technologies, and the Scottish Government is considering its position. However, does the minister agree that the UK Government ought to respect the bounds of devolution and recognise that this matter and how to support Scotland’s farmers are matters for the Scottish Government?

In Dumfries and Galloway, patients are means tested for the reimbursement of travel costs, whereas in other parts of the country it is a given that people are supported in that way. I think that an agency could advocate to change that model.

I thank the witnesses who are here in Edinburgh and those who have joined us remotely today, because it is really good to hear their input. I am keen for progress to be made with the petition.